Genealogical sketches of the Woodbury family, its intermarriages and connections

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1151707

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC UBBARY

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GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

OF THE

WOODBURY FAMILY

ITS INTERMARRIAGES AND
CONNECTIONS

BY

CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY

Edited by his sister, E. C. D. Q. WOODBURY

MANCHESTER, N. H.

PRINTED BY THE JOHN B. CLARKE COMPANY
1904

Copyright, 1904.

I

\

PREFACE.

1151707

The sketches which are embodied in this book were not
meant for the eye of the general public, but for that portion of
the Woodbury family directly interested in the one who first un-
dertook their compilation.

They are the result of much labor and study, diligent search-
ing out of obscure facts, all done in order that others may have a
reference which has been verified if the more important work of
writing a thorough family pedigree is attempted.

My excuse in thus making known the labor of my brother,
Charles Levi Woodbury, is an urgent request for its completion
and, also, a natural reluctance to permit such material to remain
inaccessible.

During the many months of Mr. Woodbury's illness, these
papers were lying loose upon his writing table, and some of them
were unavoidably lost. Despite my endeavor, I have been unable
to fill those omissions.

E. C. D. Q. WOODBURY.
Washington, D. C.

CONTENTS.

Chapter!

I.
II.

III.

IV.
V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

Preface .....

Sketch of Charles Levi Woodbury

Genealogy

Woodbury Court .

John Woodbury .

Contributary Clauses

Education

Indians

Maypole in New England

Peter Woodbury (first)

Martha W. Brown's Descendants (Brooks, Gray, Chipman)

Nicholas Woodbury's Decendants (Hall, Langdon)

Peter Woodbury (second) ......

Peter Woodbury (third) (Governor Woodbury of Vermont

71)

James Woodbury (Governor Straw, 79)

Josiah Woodbury (first)

Roger Conant .....

Josiah Woodbury (second) .

Peter Woodbury, of Antrim, N. H. (Luke Woodbury, 99;
Levi Woodbury, loi ; Mark Woodbury, 106; Jesse
Woodbury, 106) ........

Richard Dodge . . . .

Peter Woodbury, of Francestown (Levi Woodbury,
no; Dr. Peter Perkins Woodbury, in; James Trask
Woodbury, in; Jesse Woodbury, 1 1 1 ; George Wood-
bury, III; Franklin Pierce, 112; Dr. Howe, no; Mr
Grimes, no; Col. I. O. Barnes, no; Mr. Dodge, no
Mr. Bunnell, no; Mr. Eastman, no)

Descendants .....

Children and Grandchildren

Military Records .....

In Narragansett War ....

Page.
3
9
17
30
33
41
42

47
50
52
63
64
66

67
72

94

97
106

108
117
117
119
122

CONTENTS.

Chapter.

XV. List of Soldiers

In French Wars ......

Soldiers of New York (mother's side)
Colonial Officials .....

THE WIVES OF THE WOODBURYS.

XVI. Agnes, wife of John Woodbury .

Abigail Batchelder .....

Mary Dodge (Haskell, 139; Tybbotts, 139)
Hannah Batchelder .....

Hannah Traske ......

Sarah Dodge (Martha Brown, 145 ; Peter Brooks, 145
Bishop Brooks, 145 ; Judge Gray, 145 ; Raymond, 145)
Lydia Herrick (Dodge, 148 ; Conant, 148 ; Laskins, 149)
XVII. Perkins Pedigree — the Perkins Family
Esther Burnham .
Martha Rogers (Appleton) .
XVIII. Wade Family

Elizabeth Dodge .

Nicholas Woodbury (Woodbury, 156 ; Langdon ; John Lang

don, 156; Levi Woodbury, 156)
Ann Palgrave
Palgrave Family .
XIX. William Woodbury
XX. Mary Woodbury .
XXI. Elizabeth Williams Clapp

Asa G. Clapp

XXII. Clapp Pedigree (Fisher, 173; Deane, 174; Caswell, 175
White. 175; Hall, 175; King, 176)

XXIII. Various Other Pedigrees (Williams, 177; Pope, 177; Rob

inson, 178; Hawkins, 178) .....

XXIV. Elizabeth W. Quincy Clapp's Pedigree Chart

XXV. Edmund Quincy (fourth) ......

Dr. Jacob Quincy, His Descendants ....

XXVI. Elizabeth Wendell (Oliver Wendell Holmes, 200; Wendell
Phillips, 200 ; Judge Sewell, 200)
Elizabeth Staats (Cuyler, 200; Schuyler, 201 ; Morris, 201
Gouverneur, 201) .
XXVII. De Kay ....

Johannes Pieterse Van Brugh
Anneka Jans
Susannah De Trieux

Page.

128

131

132-

133

135
137
138
140
141

144

147
150
151
152
154
155

156
156
158
162
164
167
167

172

177
179
187
189

197

205
206
210
212

CONTENTS.

Chapter. Page.

XXVIII. Edmund Quincy (third); Josiah Flynt, 2 16 . . . 213

XXIX. Thomas Willett 218

XXX. John Brown . 221

The Commission, 224; The Narragansett Purchase, 230.

XXXI. Henry Flynt; Margery Hoare 234

XXXII. Edmund Quincy (second) 237

XXXIII. Elizabeth Gookin ........ 242

XXXIV. Edmund Quincy (first) 246

CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY.

A SHORT sketch of Charles Levi Woodbury may fittingly
prelude this expression of his love and thought for his kin.
Certainly, it will endow his work with additional interest
to his sister's children, for whom it was originally written. Nu-
merous sketches and lives of him have been written, but the char-
acteristics which reveal the inner man have been only partially
portrayed.

Mr. Woodbury was brought up in Washington by a father
whose nature was an admirable mixture of justice and generosity,
strong in intellect, even in temper, punctilious, setting the highest
example of morality and integrity, and also under the influence of
a highly educated and accomplished mother, fond of books, and
thoroughly sympathetic with her children.

With such forebears and in such a home, the natural family
affection was deepened in Mr. Woodbury, who possessed a nature
full of sentiment without degenerating into the sentimental.

After passing his examination at eighteen, he went to Ala-
bama to study law, but in a few years returned north and settled
in Boston, where his excellence as a lawyer in time gave him a
large income from his practice.

The soul of generosity, no appeal was ever made to him with-
out response, and as he never paused to investigate before alle-
viating distress, he was frequently the victim of imposition. He
was amiable without weakness, rarely making a criticism even on
those whose conduct laid them open to censure, preferring the
charity of silence.

If he had enemies, they were not of his making, for his dom-
inant thought was for others. He was a bachelor not through

10 CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY.

dislike to women, but because the hours passed in the companion-
ship of his books yielded him as much pleasure as the society of
woman.

Mr. Woodbury had his peculiarities. He never carried a
watch, which resulted in his occasionally missing a train ; this did
not disturb him ; there were others to follow. His quaint hats,
made in one model all through his life, broad of brim to protect
his eyes, afforded squibs to the press, but these only furnished
him amusement.

Indifferent in his way of treating his own money affairs, he
was almost over-particular in the interests of others confided to
his care. His personal property was looked after if the bank ac-
count was low, and then he would make a fifty-mile trip to his
native town to cut off coupons. His dividends accumulated at
times until the treasurers of the company would write him to
please withdraw them.

Mr. Woodbury lived in bachelor apartments in Boston, taking
his meals at Parker's from the time that famous hostelry was first
opened. He was a profound student, and the more knotty and in-
volved a question the greater his absorption and determination to
conquer ; nevertheless, he found time for comradery, bright, ap-
preciative, and loved a circle of kindred souls.

He enjoyed a good story, possessing a fund of anecdote, and
was hospitable to a remarkable degree, seldom dining alone, and,
an epicure in tastes, delighted in serving choice dishes to his
friends.

His table was distinctive from others in the room : when in-
vited guests were not present, there were seated a group of bright
men, whose wit sparkled as the champagne which was nightly
served. Topics, grave and gay, light and sober, pointed anecdote
and scintillating story, made time pass speedily. These alternated
with nights when the savant unfolded his lore and abstruse dis-
cussion held the board. This little " Round Table " was known
in Boston and outside of that city, and those who had once been
there often found it agreeable to return. Nor were these the only

CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY. 11

guests. Women of talent, of beauty and agreeability were not
excluded ; and children, too, were often in the number, for they
loved him and counted it high pleasure to be of the convives.
Mothers looked in alarm at the ice cream put before their progeny,
also injudicious champagne and the plethora of candies that fol-
lowed a mysterious whisper to waiter or bell boy.

I recall one morning when, while breakfasting with Mr.
Woodbury, a shrill juvenile shriek of delight filled the dining-
room, and as the startled guests looked up, they saw a lithe,
Titian-haired child rush from the open door, bound down the
room, and throw her arms around Mr. Woodbury's neck The
father followed. They had just arrived, and the pretty sprite who
espied my brother had never forgotten the giver of good things.

Charles Levi Woodbury was born May 22, 1820. His mother
was Elizabeth Williams Clapp of the New England family of that
name. Mr. Woodbury was a staunch Democrat and ardent pol-
itician ; never virulent towards those of opposite views. He had
no political ambition for office, though he gave up much time
stumping for presidential candidates, among whom were Polk, in
1844, Cass, in 1848 ; he attended, also, the convention at Balti-
more which nominated Franklin Pierce for President, and went on
the stump in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecti-
cut, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

President Pierce offered him a foreign mission, which he de-
clined.

He was president of the Granite Club, No. i, Boston, and
formed a confederacy of clubs throughout the state. Boston went
Democratic for the first time in history. He was a delegate to
the convention of 1856 which nominated James Buchanan, and
made speeches in several states in favor of the nominee.

President Buchanan appointed him district attorney for Mass-
achusetts, which, being in the line of his profession, he accepted.

Never sparing of himself, he spoke for McClellan in 1864,
Seymour in 1868, Tilden in 1876, and was delegate to the conven-
tion which nominated Hancock in 1880.

12 CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY.

The fisheries dispute with Great Britain engaged his legal in-
terest and he pursued the case with ardor, lecturing and writing
many articles, and going to Washington to discuss its phases with
the secretary of state, Mr. Bayard.

Among the many orations which he delivered perhaps the
most important were those on Rufus Choate, 185Q, Judge Taney,
1874, and Judge Curtis the same year.

He was an assiduous writer to magazines on reciprocity in
connection with Canada ; decay of United States navigation ;
opening of the Public Library, Boston, on Sunday ; international
law in the Mason and Slidell case, 1861 ; annexation of St.
Thomas in 1869 ; the " Kosta " case ; on coal, 1880 ; on the Fish-
eries in Relation to the Discovery of North America, and many
other themes, his broad and able mind assimilating each topic and
keeping interest in current events, and yet at no time allowing his
profession to suffer, until the multiplicity of work began to tell
even on his strong constitution.

His spare hours he devoted to a study of genealogy, a pursuit
which brought him frequently to the libraries and gave him much
pleasure in the later days of his life.

He exercised it with the same patience and continuous in-
vestigation brought to bear on any work he undertook, following
up clues with persistence, ha.ving the records of churches and
towns searched throughout the States and England, spending
large sums on his hobby. He became so noted for his genealog-
ical lore that he was often called upon by others to assist them,
and he cordially shared the result of his labors.

The Masonic order was the most engrossing of his interests.
He was made a Master Mason June 4, 1858, Winslow Lewis
Lodge, Boston ; Royal Arch Mason June 22, 1858, in Sheckinah
chapter, Chelsea; Royal and Select Master January 25, 1865,
Boston Council, Boston ; a Knight Templar March 18, 1859, in
DeMolay Commandery, Boston ; received the Ineffable Grade Feb-
ruary 20, 1863, in Raymond Lodge of Perfection, Lowell, Mass.;
the Ancient Traditional Grades in Raymond Council of Princes of

CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY. 13

Jerusalem, Lowell, February, 1863; the Philosophical and Doc-
trinal Grades F'ebruary 20, 1863, in Mt. Calvary chapter of Rose
Croix, H. R. D. M.; the Modern Historical and Chivalric Grades
February 20, 1863, in Boston Consistory, S. P. R. S. 320; created
a Sovereign Grand Inspector General, 33rd, Boston, May 21,
1863 ; crowned an active member, Boston, May 16, 1867.

He held the following Masonic offices : Corresponding
Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1862 to
1868, inclusive ; Deputy Grand Master of Grand Lodge of Massa-
chusetts, 1869-70-71 ; Past Grand Lieutenant Commander of Su-
preme Council, N. M, J. U. S. A., 1879 to 1891.

He delivered various orations on Freemasonry ; Antiquity
of Freemasonry, 1871 ; Lecture on the Antiquity of Cornerstones,
1877; the Masonic Centennial Oration, and on Spurious Rites
and Degrees in the Grand Lodge in 1883, Early Constitutions of
Freemasonry, and so on.

This gives an idea of some of the subjects which occupied his
mind in the hours of so-called leisure, when he sat late into the
night in his library, surrounded by the books he had collected
from all over the world.

That collection, however, was not permitted to remain with
him to the end of his life, for a large portion was destroyed in the
great fire of Boston, in 1872, while he was absent from the city.

Mr. A. T. Perkins, writing an account of this fire, enumerat-
ing the losses of individuals, has the following :

" Mr. Charles Levi Woodbury lost a portion of his extremely
curious and rare collection of books, about two thousand volumes
being burned. The works destroyed were intended as a supple-
ment to a large and well selected library, inherited from his dis-
tinguished father. They consisted of about one thousand vol-
umes of the more modern authors, such as a large collection of
the best French literature, histories and memoirs ; much of it very
rare ; numerous books on modern science and the practical arts ;
the works of statesmen ; early history of Canada ; of New Eng-
land,— a substantial collection, including several choice editions
of the best English dramatists, poets and historians.

14 CHARLES LEVI WOODBLTRY.

" The other thousand books lost it will be difficult indeed to
replace, rare as they were, either in subject or edition.

" The mediaeval philosophers and scientists were largely rep-
resented, among whom were Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Al-
bertus Magnus, Raymond Lulli, Crolius, Pic de Mirindola Flud,
Ashmole and Flamnel. Besides these, the work of some of the
mystics of the times, such as Behmen, Reuchlin and Basil Valen-
tin ; also a majority of the Kabalists, Rosecrucians, together with
many writings and investigations, ancient and modern, on which
students in comparative theology rely for information concerning
ancient mysteries and oriental creeds.

"Mr. Woodbury says : ' It will require years of correspondence
to reconstruct this department alone.' Also many specimens of
the fifteenth century, a number of them rubricated or illuminated ;
some editiones ptiyicipes, representing most of the important
presses of the continent ; many specimens of early woodcuts,
some older than the invention of printing with movable types ;
also a collection of Bibles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
some richly illuminated, others quaintly illustrated, the oldest
and richest being a Venetian Bible of 1480 ; also many of the
versions of translators of later date and several MSS., the oldest
of the thirteenth century and numerous quaint ones of more mod-
ern origin. Besides these there was a rare collection of early Ma-
sonic writings and MSS., illustrating the sources and early his-
tory of its dogma and rite.

" A collection illustrating the history of the Knights Tem-
plar, rare and unsurpassed in original authorities ; embracing all
the chronicles of the Crusades. The collections of the Benedic-
tine monks, all the historians of that ancient order, and all but
one of the works on the trial of the Templars, with all the proofs
added that were known to be accessible for historical purposes.

" Mr. Woodbury also lost all his note books compiled with great
labor on certain branches of American history, on the Templars
and on early P'reemasonry. Also several unpublished essays on
the origin and progress of patent and copyright laws and on the
mechanic arts.

CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY. 16

" Out of all this interesting list there were saved only St.
Augustin's De Civitate Dei, printed in 1475, a rarely illuminated
Dutch missal MSS., the Cabbala Denudata, and one work of
Raymond Lullis'. It is pleasing to record, however, that Mr.
Woodbury displays under all these losses his proverbial courage
and good temper, declaring that the destruction of the accumula-
tions of twenty years has not daunted him or eradicated his love
for old books, and strongly hinting that he shall endeavor to re-
pair so far as he is able what seems to the uninitiated to be quite
difficult to replace."

After Judge Levi Woodbury removed to Washington, he re-
tained his Portsmouth home in New Hampshire only as a sum-
mer residence. This had been the gift of Hon. Asa Clapp to his
daughter, Elizabeth, when she married Levi Woodbury. He had
then commenced his notable career : at twenty-seven years of age
he was judge of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire ; at thir-
ty-four, governor of the State ; at thirty-six, United States sena-
tor, and then successively secretary of the navy, and of the treas-
ury, again United States senator, and finally associate justice of
the United States Supreme Court. He refused the mission to
Spain, offered by President Jackson, and to England, offered by
President Polk, as his wife dreaded the then long sea voyage.
The English mission was a most important one involving the set-
tlement of the Oregon question.

Charles Levi Woodbury loved the house where he was born,
surrounded by its forty acres of cultivated land. After the death
of his mother, who survived her husband many years, no member
of the family had slept under its roof for twenty-five years ; but it
was in perfect order for occupancy, and the garden kept in bloom
each season with the favorite flowers of his mother.

One object of interest near the garden was a mammoth oak,
whose age could not be conjectured. Lightning had struck and
demolished its top, but the great curved branches below stretched
out with their shining leaves, overshadowing the last resting-place
of the pet dogs. The branches gradually breaking from storms at

16 CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY.

last caused the oak to fall, a few years ago, literally crumbling to
the ground. It was one of the most ancient trees of the town as
one of the most remarkable.

Some of the personal detail may appear out of place in a work
of this kind, but the book is intended for Mr. Woodbury's rel-
atives as well as the public, which is my excuse for inserting
it.

CHAPTER 1.

GENEALOGY.

THERE is some honest science in the effort to know your
ancestry. The descent from a distinguished progenitor
may be a deterioration of race, particularly when he is far
back and has little supporting intermediaries.

A very long pedigree is not necessarily a good one, ofttimes
challenging comparisons. Quality is better than quantity, and
averages afford some information.

Heredity shows in the perpetuation of qualities. In the race-
horse, the bulldog, the gamecock, we know we are looking for the
outcrop of a particular quality in the descendants. In the canary
and the mocking bird, we are in a like pursuit.

How is it with the human race ? Do we seek for form, brain
or game quality .-' Or is it the docility of the cart-horse or the
trim Spitz dog that we desire ? May we not also look for special
development of music, poetry, eloquence, or of enterprise, pru-
dence, piety ?

The laws of descent involve all these matters as well as cour-
age and physical development. Man has studied this in his own
race less than in animals, and devoted less thought to a subject of
paramount importance to the human species than to the breeding
of beasts. When the woman claims her natural right to select the
parent of her children she asks no more than the man who chooses
a mate to become the mother of his race.

There is no doubt that a national type of appearance is grad-
ually formed in an old nation. We easily distinguish an Irishman,
Frenchman, Hebrew, Englishman. But beyond this unconscious
formation of a national type, there exists in each a great variety

17

18 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

of intellectual characteristics, each having its bright and dull, its
brave and timid, its common and superior specimens.

The rules for breeding human quality are undefined because
they have been little studied and less practiced. Yet there is a
strong point in atavism as an abstract law. "He comes of good
stock " is a common expression of confidence.

The glamour of wealth and beauty need only be referred to,
because a nervous impulse known as love also comes in and dis-
turbing the calculations on the law of descent, render abortive the
marks on which we unhesitatingly rely when breeding horses for
speed, dogs for courage, or birds for song.

Man is not disposed to sacrifice any consideration for the sake
of raising a higher class of children. His philosophy takes a
short cut. Sometimes the elders of the family make a successful
fight in favor of choosing " from a good family " or against wed-
ding hereditary disease. We do not know how much better the
sexes would do did they adhere more closely in their choice to the
rules of heredity. Instance : The race-horse in America. Some
two or three thousand colts are annually produced, but not more
than a hundred and fifty of these make decided mark, though all
show some of the quality of pedigree, and some, not apparently
distinguished, yet vindicate in their progeny the pure blood of
their race.

Pride of family, we therefore see, is not the only motive to a
study of genealogy.

The investigation into the influence of heredity and the suc-
cess or failure of crosses has a scientific value. The world gives
considerable credit to the " self-made man " and he often deserves
much, yet something is also due to his ancestry, the view of his
being, possibly, a successful cross, and it does not in the least de-
tract from his achievement if he reflects credit on his parentage.

I am not advocating any particular theory of breeding the
human race, nor do I imagine that within the restrictions imposed
by society or man, his race is as capable of rapid improvement as
we have attained in the horse, dog and cattle under the scientific

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 19

control of man. While a valuable cross produces betterment it is
rare that such a one is found. Blending even good stock is sel-
dom in the line of advance ; it is doing well if the result is not a
deterioration.

Here, then, is manifested one of the causes and fields for a
scientific study of genealogy. Do you belong to a deteriorating
stock or one that is improving ? This is not the feudal tone of
thought which ranks descent from illustrious ancestry as more
than the quality of the descending generations, past or present.
But it is full of logic and common sense and is in harmony with
progressive civilization and development.

There are distinguished men, and, also, distinguished families.
The rank which was given to man, eight or nine centuries ago, for
some pleasing service, is no proof that the man was of, or founded
a distinguished family. The quality of the family was determined
by the test of the future.

When a race-horse like Sir Archy or Boston procreates a
family, including hundreds of trotters and winners as Hambleto-
nian, who projects a cross of his blood into the pedigree of nine
tenths of all the winners within twenty years after his death, there
are founded illustrious families, having today both philosophical
and commercial value.

Among man, we allow much credit to the blood of distin-
guished family, for it shows a latent and hereditary talent and
character which may crop out in high intensity anywhere in the
descent.

Primogeniture has lost favor, even direct descent has greater
limitations than family. Instance : The cross of parents which
made an advancement dating in its success from the birth of the
children who all share its effects alike and who, alike, have capac-
ity for the atavism resultant.

I acknowledge the natural attractions and repulsions which
play a serious part. The blond yearns toward the dark, the tall
toward the short, the grave often toward the gay. Even the com-
parative ages of marrying couples are found to have average fixed

20 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

laws. Contrasts as well as similarities have their attractions and
influence.

Whether the destiny of our social system is to improve the
natural qualities of the race or to reduce the individual to one
level capacity is a problem for the serious study of the future.

National life needs the statesman, the hero, the poet, the ora-
tor, the engineer, the inventor, the man of science and explorer.
Without them the nation decays.

The survival of the fittest is the Darwinian theory, but it does
not tell us who are the fittest. The escape from enemies, the en-
ergy of conquest we readily understand, but these neither meet
the problem of man, considered in society nor as individual. The
capacity to acquire wealth, the courage to protect it and the judg-
ment to put it to useful service are but a single branch of human
excellence. The artist, the man of science, the poet, historian,
scholar, lawyer, moralist and teacher, are not great for this cause,
nor are the warrior, the reformer, or that remarkable creator of
wealth, the inventor. It is a quality developed in a low degree in
the mechanic, the farmer, the laborer, yet in all, force of character
and professional worth may be largely marked and even pro-
created, nor does society withhold its admiration when it appears.
Wealth may be inherited and kept by rare self-denial, but
rarely does the faculty of both acquiring and keeping descend. The
consequence would not be useful, yet so far as the quality tends
to a diffusion of wealth among a greater class of possessors and the
comforts it brings them, the encouragement they are able to ren-
der to art, literature, benevolence and education, together with
the prompt supply its holders can loan to their country in its hour
of need, so far is the conservation implied admirable.

In like way I could run through the other qualities I have
named : the victor in the Olympian games, the winners of the boat
races between Oxford and Cambridge, the heroes of the football
tussles where Yale, Harvard and Princeton compete, have, in the
broad cosmopolitan educational conception of this fi7i de sihle
society of ours a credit and fame which would terrify the ancient

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 21

Puritans of New England, and yet even they had admiration and
respect for the gallant sailors of their day when they were engaged
in lawful war and commerce, and even in the contraband and
piratical, if we may believe the fog-covered pages of their histo-
rians. While to their landsmen, excepting the title of deacon,
none was so dear as that of captain in their militia.

We had no peerage, no feudal tenure of land in New Eng-
land, consequently a peer was as strange an exotic to the colonial
born here as a polar bear ; and the " lord of the manor," the
" manor house or court " were words that had lost all significance
as sigh of ideas or their expression in America, or, better speak-
ing, never had any existence in New England in that form.

Our " deputies to the General Court " were legislators, and,
pro hac vice, had the powers of manor lords and feudal " honors,"
aye, and of the feudal kings themselves.

Hence, again, an ancestor who was a deputy or a military of-
ficer or a deacon, was a man of rank and precedence. Were he a
minister, a magistrate or of the council, or, perchance, governor of
a colony, he also was a man of notable colonial rank whether he
bore coat armor or were ignorant of its very existence.

He got his rank of the People in its sovereign aspect and au-
thority because it was freely and voluntarily given, thus making
it intrinsically higher in quality and dignity than any title the
king might confer on a subject of his own suggestion and pleas-
ure, and today should be held in more reverence.

In either case, the selection for the dignity is only an evi-
dence of the real merit of the individual, and covers but a part of
the broad field of human effort. Today, after a century or two of
interval, it is the only evidence of quality obtainable, and, there-
fore, highly prized. History is made up of biographies, and in
these the genealogy has counted for something, from the earliest
ages recorded in the Bible. The kings of the Saxon heptarchy in
England, yes, whether of Saxon or Norse, never thought their
title secure until they had traced their pedigree back to the Woden
or Scandinavian gods.

22 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

In modern society competition exists, an element distinguish-
able from the frozen caste system of feudal government. The in-
heritable distinction of rank once attaching gave no index after-
ward of the relative or positive merits of successors, but in the
New England, as in modern systems, these honors of official con-
nection with government never ceased to be an object of compe-
tition, either from personal or party standpoint, and the tenure of
office was democratically short.

The study of genealogy, therefore, leads us into the history
of one's country and the party government thereof, improves the
knowledge of the elemental principles of our institutions, and
trains the mind to appreciate the development which earnest and
pious ancestors have given to the bases of self-government and
equal liberty as well as the centuries of a struggle they endured in
their efforts.

Without recapitulating the effects of heredity on national and
personal character, or the influence of judicious crosses, or how
these latter affect the vitality of families, all of which can be
studied in one's own genealogy as well as the persistence of some
inheritable qualities through many generations ; to one competent
to seek for this knowledge of the family life, the traversing the
history of the past lends a confidence and self-reliance far greater
than that derived from the speculations of judicial astronomy,
physiognomy or phrenology, because it rests on facts, rather than
theory.

There is another consideration : The " founder of the family "
W'ho has raised it into prominence or special consideration may be
a very recent person, and the crosses that developed him be wor-
thy of study. Reason would say a new founder may give as firm
a tone to a family as an ancient founder, unless the older family
has been good in every generation. The chances are that the
new one will do as well in the future. We cannot wipe out the
failures, but can pin our faith on the averages or on the brilliant
scions developed.

Genealogy accumulates facts for the scientific study of man
and his prospects. This I again affirm emphatically.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 23

Rank, whether it comes by peerage, military service, bureau-
cracy, legislative or the church, is simply evidence of the capacity
and character of the individual. An inherited title is not evidence
of either.

There is this much in public opinion : though distinction
come only to a few, yet all the family share in the lustre. "A
poor cousin of the King," said the modest Spanish soldier five cen-
turies ago, and so say many people in many lands today. They
do not deem it a decline, but a hope for the future.

A class of observers maintain the influence of a calling or
trade will impress a particular cast on the features, and cite the
facility with which a priest, lawyer, doctor, sailor, shoemaker, may
be recognized as such, though they do not affirm that this impress
is an inheritable quality.

Practically, genealogy offers consolations to all : if one is
more distinguished than his ancestors, he flatters himself he is an
improved development of the stock. If he falls below par of the
race, he claims them as his type, and believes he is simply misun-
derstood and that the blood will crop out again in his progeny and
be recognized in the future as it was in the past.

The Chinese worship of ancestors is not without its share of
plausible reasons. It indicates that one had ancestors, and, there-
fore, is of an older family than was Adam, the apple eater.

It demonstrates again the belief in the persistency with
which the flavor of the first apple eater has continued in his de-
scendants, whether separating these from those above ground or
those under and these from those who have ascended to the spirit
world or otherwise, yet a connected, sympathetic, synchronous
one life in the whole, hence genealogy is the logical outcome of
the Greek " Know thyself — Gnothi semitojiy

The selfishness in the study of one's self, because of the in-
dividualism in existence, is not of the arrogant, exclusive, unchar-
itable nature. Families are large. There are records of man in a
civilized condition more than five thousand years ago, or one hun-
d red and fifty generations of the race. One has, of course, two

24 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and so on ;
at ten generations back, or three hundred years, he should repre-
sent one thousand and twenty-four of his then Hving ancestors ;
at twenty generations, one milHon and forty-eight thousand, five
hundred and seventy-six living persons contributing ancestry for
him, the individual of the present :

At thirty generations back, one billion, one hundred and thir-
ty-six million, nine hundred and ninety-seven, six hundred and
twenty-four persons had the honor of fashioning ancestry for the
inquirer into his line. All these figures are liable to reduction by
the intermarriages of cousins, which //v tants diminishes the num-
ber of remote ancestors in some degree : the diminution is extraor-
dinary. At the one hundred and fifty generations to which ref-
erence is made, the number of ancestors would be far greater than
the whole surface of the earth and sea would afford standing room.

At the thirtieth generation, it equals or surpasses the pop-
ulation of the globe, and the thirty-first would double that popula-
tion. In fact, there has not been this universal fusion or blend-
ino- of the human race, nor this number of people alive at the same
time.

Practically, national separation and the breeding in and in, or
intermarriage of relations, have narrowed these mathematical pro-
portions to a measurable standard.

England alone, in the time of William the Conqueror, had,
perhaps, a million and a half of population, excluding Ireland,
Wales, and Scotland. In place of increasing in the next almost
nine hundred years to over a billion, the entire race of English, at
home and abroad, is not over forty millions, while the Celtic races
of Great Britain at home and abroad will probably muster no more
than twenty millions.

England's case shows how extensive has been the intermar-
riage of relatives, demonstrates how a national type of individual
is gradually formed and becomes recognizable. The tribal system
of Ireland and Scotland also points to the close family relation
which narrows the number of ancestors from what they would
have been if there had been no intermarriages

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 25

The Norman soldiers spread over every county and manor, and
every man in England felt their incursion ; within a generation or
two, their descendants so crossed into the local population as to
become homogeneous with them.

The Danes and the Norsemen were at the conquest the pre-
dominant population of the east and north; the Saxon of the
south and westward, and the Celtic in the west and southwest of
England.

The newly arrived Norman fused equally in all these sections,
and the races merged together in increasing ratio. In Canute's
time there were three local tongues, the Scandinavian, the Saxon,
the Celtic ; the Normans brought in a fourth.

Written and spoken language of a new sort was created and
developed within three centuries : a tongue called English, which
has gradually grown and extirpated all the others from common
use. In this welding and fusing progress into an English race
and speech, each of these strongholds of the original race retains
some traces of its original tongue, making an idiom or dialect, dif-
ferent in one section from that used in another. But these dis-
tinctions have slowly faded, and in a great measure now are
extinct.

From these mingling idioms the Court and Literature raised
a standard for literature and the stage ; but the people rested con-
tent in their several idioms, dropping or adding little by little as
the fusing process proceeded.

This has much to do with genealogy. It is the story of the
formation of a strong race type within a short or limited period.
It shows, also, how a restricted and diffused race immigration in
a few generations becomes absorbed and homogeneous to the mass
of national life.

That such a new strain of blood may influence the tempera-
ment and intellect of the mass, when in sufficient quantity, can-
not be denied. Indeed, breeders admit that a quarter or one eighth
of thoroughbred racing blood improves the endurance of the trot-
ter at high rates of speed.

2

2(3 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

My friend, looking over the last few pages, asks me, How as
to Adam ? The tenth generation from him did not have the one
hundred and twenty-four ancestors.

True. Take him and Eve as the first pair, that tenth gener-
ation showed five hundred and twelve crosses of breeding, in and
in, but that was more than one hundred and fifty generations ago,
and the principles of natural selection as well as survival of the
fittest can cover more differentiation into races and nations than
one history records.

The genealogist, tracing his pedigree, not unseldom finds a
cross that from name or locality he recognizes as from some other
section than the habitat of his family. It interests and forces
him into wider reading and new research. Had he been priding
himself on being of the west counties and the new cross comes
from Norfolk or Suffolk, he begins to regard the Vikings and the
Danish rule in England with more complacency.

Should he hear a Norman name and encounter a cross with
Trelawney, Tailisen or Pendragon, he must square his faith about
the Celts and the Round Table, and admit they possessed chiv-
alry and poetry.

This tri-part fusion moved slowly in England, but in Amer-
ica, where enterprise drew from each party and hurled them to-
gether in mixed settlements, the union has been very rapid. To-
day, an American can rarely run back three generations of his
family without discovering ancestors from as many sources.
Without dilating further it may be observed that in this way, the
study of genealogy also promotes the study of history in its truest
but rarest relation to the formation of national types and the
blending of races.

One begins with strong prejudice, perhaps, but before going
far finds reason for moderation. The probability is that in Eng-
land there is not a single stock that can be traced, pure and un-
mingled, since the Conqueror, in either Celtic, Saxon, Scandi-
navian or Norman blood. The mingling has not been equal
in the different counties, but all are mingled and the race is not
deteriorated in consequence. Rather the converse.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 27

The inference is strong that extended pedigrees for the Eng-
lish, thirty generations back, will show substantially similar ances-
tors for every family. None are now so humble but they may find
men of worth, genius or rank scattered in their ever spreading
ancestry. Many who are now high may discover crosses from the
worker and the cotter who have swelled the veins of illustrious
ancestry.

Probably no family is without one or more crosses of gentle
blood ; the difficulty being to find them. They are there. The
law of the survival of the fittest decimates among the gentles as
in the laborers of the country. Indeed, as the gentles were
called to more heroic adventure and war, it has fallen with more
relative destruction upon them, and happy are the elect of today
who can trace back to the Conqueror's date, one or two or three
gentle lines among the thousand which have combined to give
them existence.

Upon all considerations, the general condition of our own
race has decidedly improved, the arts are higher; food, clothing,
shelter for every class are better ; labor is less weighty ; talents
have a hundred fields open to them for one in the Conqueror's
time.

Though the struggle for existence may be more intense, the
means of subsistence are multiplied enormously. It is man's
work and the study of the individual in his breeding and develop-
ment that have stood as pioneer in any of these lines of progress.
It will prove instructive in an important degree, as regards past
and present, to continue this work.

The yeoman who drew a good bow at Hastings or Agincourt
is as truly a part of his nation's greatness and success as the
mailed rider who charged with spear and lance, confident of the
safety of his body in its encasement of impregnable armor.

When the divine right of the people to govern themselves
came to be recognized by the people, the divine right of kings to
rule the people and endow the servants of their persons with no-
bility fled like the shadows of night before the morning glow of

28 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

the sun of liberty, and the memory of those who had been mar-
tyrs to the cause of liberty was revived in honor.

Pope said: "An honest man is the noblest work of God."
And Burns declared : " The rank is but the guinea's stamp, the
man is the gold for a' that." A deserving yeoman and a merito-
rious peer are equally entitled to the respect of their descendants
and either may prove a source of that Bhtc Blood of Nature which
enriches the character and ability of their descendants and ben-
efits their country.

In ten generations after the Conqueror William, nine tenths
of his Normans had lost their race individuality and merged into
the conquered.

In ten generations after the settlement of New England, the
inhabitants had not lost race individuality in the mass of the pop-
ulation. The descendants of each family who came here in the
seventeenth century now rejoice in thousands in their American
ancestry.

The genealogies of a thousand families have been printed for
family use. Public records have been ransacked for details of
every generation. Under skilled eyes, intermarriages have been
traced.

For the first eight generations, they were exclusively among
the descendants of the early settlers ; and mainly so in the last
and present generations, though, by the inevitable law, the cross-
ing outward is extending to include subsequent European families.
Probably in ten generations more, no unmixed Colonial families
can be discovered.

The descendants of thousands more of these early families
have not yet traced their lines, though, in many cases, the work
has begun and can be readily completed by a little perseverance.

The main stimulus is a just pride in the great results which
have followed the settlement of the United States and the wise
institutions cf the colonists.

Societies have been formed of the descendants of Revolution-
ary sires, and these have done and are doing excellent work.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 29

Some Colonial societies of like character have been established,
and genealogy has become, of late, a popular science among our
families of native descent.

There are other points of picturesque incident : the French
war from 1750 to 1761 ; the Indian and French wars which ex-
tended from 1675 to 1750, with rare intermissions; the long
struggle for civil liberty in the colonies against the encroachments
of the British Parliament, which began with the settlements in
1620-30 and continued until the peace of 1783-

These have had their heroic laborers in the vineyard and de-
serve ample exploration.

As the genealogist reviews these epochs of Colonial history,
he will mark the heroic fortitude with which the Colonists breasted
every storm as it came. He will also note that an instinctive self-
reliance sprung up and burst the clogs of feudalism and shaped
new institutions, breathing of liberty, equality, and self govern-
ment. Brick by brick, as it were, the Colonial generations built
the structure of this republic.

Though its grandeur may now excel the dreams of their
imagination, still we and the world owe to their heroic souls and
inspired humanity a debt that never will be forgotten. The glory
of the dead feudalism is past. The glory of our Colonial struc-
ture still soars wherever man looks hopefully upward.

CHAPTER II.

WOODBURY COURT,

FAMILIES in England, often, and their cadet branches, fre-
quently, took the names of the lands they occupied, aban-
doning their Norman names in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. In and near the parish Woodbury, we find " the Dam-
merle de Wodebere "; also plain " de Wodebere " in all varieties of
spelling on deeds and records at those dates. Near the middle of
the thirteenth century, the records show "Wodebere Court" in
the Parish of Plymtree, held with other lands by a line of " de
Wodeberes " as a feof of the " honor of Gloucester."

When it had passed out of their hands, the name still appears
in the records, engaged in land disputes in the vicinity, until, early
in the fifteenth century, I lose sight of them. They had not been
numerous at any time. Where they lived for the next century, I
have not learned.

In Henry the Eighth's time, some of them were taxed on
land in Brulescane, on the edge of Somerset, and some parishes
near there ; these bore the same Christian names common a cen-
tury or so earlier, to the Woodburys.

I have traced some of the wars and found the Woodburys
in them : one was prior of Worcester a few years before the Ref-
ormation. It is enough to say the name had been borne by stout
squires and doughty knights before the Wars of the Roses, but
those who brought it to America had a keener quality of adventure
and as firm a character.

It is with the American Woodburys that we are chiefly con-
cerned, for now that the ninth generation of the descendants of John

30

THE WOODBUKY FAMILY. 31

Woodbury and his brother are on the stage of hfe in numbers by
no means inconsiderable, I think many of them would be gratified
to read the life of the " Old Planter," who came to this country
in 1624.

Therefore have I gathered from the records all that I could
find of his acts and deeds and set them before his scions in intel-
ligible shape, like St. Paul, reserving to myself the right to deal in
no genealogies.

This work is not framed for an appeal to the general public,
nor does it cater to the literary taste or aspire to show the history
of the times it represents. Intended as a mere private writing, it
will remain unpublished, but for the information of those lineally
descended from the "Old Planter" and his brother.

To the descendants of John Woodbury in America, I dedicate
this sketch of their first ancestor in America.

Coming to Cape Ann, when the great Council of Plymouth
exercised exclusive jurisdiction over New England, he was not
alone as a pioneer. His companions there and himself are known
in local history as " the Old Planters." They were men of vigor-
ous character; and laid on this continent the foundations for the
subsequent Bay Commonwealth.

I have presented the last seventeen years of John Wood-
bury's life with whatever of its surroundings in history seemed
useful to show to his descendants his vigor and stability of man-
hood. If the influence of his life appears rather larger now than
it did to his generation, it is to be remembered that things un-
heeded then or little considered have come in centuries to seem
of considerable importance, and there was that temper of human-
ity in him which stands the test of time.

I may have failed in tracing the exact shades of his religious
opinions on the theology of his day. If the generations of " Dea-
cons " descended from him obtained theirs through the law of
heredity, a judgment would not be difficult.

Kinglake and others have touched on the men and manners
of his native county with vivid and lifelike accuracy. They could

S2 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

have thrown the grace of art and nature around the dry records of
these Old Planters from that section, but the details need brighter
fancy than mine.

There are views and facts expressed in the course of this
sketch which may not meet with ready assent from all who have
followed the stereotyped class of local histories, but these views
and facts are the result of careful research and much consider-
ation.

In collecting a family history, one of the deterrents is the
meeting of checks in tracing out points which require patience
and much investigation.

In these days when the antiquarian and the genealogist are
busy, it struck me that a memoir of the first settler of their
race in America would be an agreeable contribution to his descen-
dants. I have given some leisure and investigation to this work.

After my own fashion I have explored the conditions under
which he lived and have dwelt upon them in this monograph.

I have shrunk from the weary detail of extended genealogy.
In fact, the labor of erecting this monument for his nameless
resting-place has been sufficiently arduous and complex and it must
fare at its value, a rude cairn on the seaside to mark the resting-
place of his remains, a pious votive offering to preserve the mem-
ory of one of those first settlers whose unremembered services in
the foundation of the settlement lies with their unmarked bones,
deep beneath the soil cultivated by them, first of all the race who
have now spread from ocean to ocean on this continent. There
are many of these unsung heroes scattered along the coast, and
my affection hovers around their memory.

It is said in Catholic countries, I am told, that by rule, a man
should have been dead three centuries before he is canonized.

This mystic period has nearly expired for the English settlers
who came in James the First's time, and I should not have ven-
tured, this, prematurely, had I any expectation of being alive in
1924 to make the claim.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 33

John Woodbury was a pioneer of pioneers. His stalwart
qualities fitted him for success in the rude and dangerous encoun-
ters incident to a first settler's life. When, in process of time,
thousands had followed in his path to Massachusetts, he also dis-
played the qualities of a good and valuable citizen, filling many
official trusts, more important, relatively, in the young settlement,
than they would be now with the undiminishing confidence of the
people.

Now, after a century of Republican self-government has set
the tone of thought of this age, in looking back at the vigorous,
energetic John Woodbury, we see a type foreshadowing the pres-
ent. He represents none of the glare and glitter of decaying
feudalism ; no pretentious distrust of the head or the heart of the
people ; no hankering after vain distinctions. He did not sway
the politics of the Bay, though he was often sent as deputy, nor
did he influence the bent of that new theology which grew luxu-
riantly on the soil.

He had not a cranky talent for shining in speculations on
church or state. He leaves, indeed, the impression that he was
rather taciturn, but he certainly had ability of a practical charac-
ter which his compatriots respected as a solid sense in executive
matters, an aptness and method in administrating which made him
useful in local affairs, and is still notable as an example of the
fidelity reposed in him in his share of self-government, as patri-
otic as it was demonstrable in producing confidence in liberal prin-
ciples of autonomy.

His mind did not run much on new schemes to physic evil
out of society by wrapping caste and creed in the hide of a royal
charter.

True, he was one of the caste of Freemen, electing the offi-
cers of the Company, and five times was sent from Salem as one
of its deputies to " the great and general court." The side of
his character which most impressed his contemporaries may be
said to be distinctly like their own, to which we owe the develop-
ment of our institutions.

34 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

As the records show no evidence of a fierce bigotry, and much
of a practical quality of mind, we can reasonably assume the lat-
ter was his predominant trait.

In the origin of the Bay colony Woodbury was very near the
proposers, but as he was an old resident in America, to which he
had come to settle and raise cattle, the first brought here, he
remained.

" Brother Woodbury *' represents the solid qualities of the
early freemen ; he was one of the pith and marrow of those who
first landed to make home of the rugged shore ; free of landlord-
ism and tenure, to own their own places, to mingle in local gov-
ernment, to ultimately carry liberty from most unpromising be-
ginnings, religious toleration, freedom of speech, self-government,
to all citizens of the republic of which they were prototype.

A race whose sons, impatient of old restrictive ways, boldly
followed the law of progress until they brought social civilization,
political liberty, prosperity, education, and morals to the highest
point ever attained in ancient or modern civilization.

And still they go forward !

Faithful and unshrinking adherence to duty in all situations
was the eloquence of his life. His firm will won in the active,
practical business of living, the crown of righteousness. The type
is not lost. Every community has a notable exemplar.

The age appears to like details in the accessories of art. At
the sacrifice of much ink, I have yielded to this desire in order
that I may weave sundry disquisitions into my fabric. Perhaps
they will pass as tedious, but a thousand years hence, if they sur-
vive, they may be authority like unto the history of Sildas.

The readers must not shake their heads at the homely sur-
roundings I have sketched about the main figure of this memoir.
They must remember John Woodbury was only an Englishman, and
England had by no means got up to the nineteenth century mark in
social belongings. She had " a sick man " at home, " dying feud-
alism." Only Bohun and Montfort, among England's barons,
can claim to be peers with these hardy nurses of liberty.

11^1707

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 35

Here, where John Woodbury came, a child was born. Men
called it Liberty. It is that child which has made the nineteenth
century great and will make its successor still more glorious for
humanity. Rough fishermen, old planters, cool pioneers, stern
Puritans and daring Indians rocked its cradle. The divine right
of the people found its first temple in America in the breasts of
these men.

Can you wonder that such things crowd the imagination and
force utterance from the pen ; that while pursuing my modest
theme, I see that with these regal corporations there glides an
instinct, born of Gothic blood, that develops and asserts itself from
day to day, until the faith in self-government finally breaks the
rotten manacles of the " divine right of oppression " and frames
the institution of liberty ?

The despotism in that age, current on both sides of the At-
lantic, has been judged. That theme is old. But America has a
duty to perform. The " Roll of Battle Abbey " is the record of
the companions of Norman Conquest of half an island. What
shall America do for the memory of those earth compelling
Planters, who first made homes along her coast and raised their
children here to recruit the army of occupation of a continent ?
It is an ever moving race. Long ago, it poured into Europe and
swept across to the Baltic and German oceans ; thence, like hives
of bees, it swarmed in successive flights into Great Britain, and
when the veil was lifted and the time had come, onward across the
seas it took its way and rushed into America, swelling its ranks
and filling the vast stretch of land until it has reached the golden
gates of the Pacific.

At all times it has been characterized by the industry and
sting of the bee. The movements of the planets are not more
regular ; the theories of natural selection and the survival of the
fittest may be the key of its march.

At every step its purposes grew more lofty, its intelligence
more bright, its development more broad, its liberty more self-
reliant and progressive. The Arcadia dreamers in the past never

36 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

conceived the restless growth and industrial civilization achieved
by this race, and yet, all this progress in education, art, skill, arms,
power, and purpose of the common race points as its culmination
to one end, the liberty, independence, and prosperity of each in-
dividually in the state.

The idyl of the race is loftier than the imagination of Virgil,
Homer or Shakespeare ever dared to soar, and it is broader in its
many-sided scope and growth than ever statesman grasped. Who
shall foretell its end ?

That at one era in the march of this race, " the Old Planters
of Nahumkeike " were the pioneers of its movement until the
wave of immigration of note and importance in its character and
consequences, came to them, stamps on their adventure a measure
of dignity of which they were unconscious at the time.

In trying to confine myself strictly to a monograph of John
Woodbury, it has often been difficult to separate him from the
others of the Old Planters, and when the separation has been
made, it is not to prefer him in any of the attributes which make
men respectable nor to claim for him more of the esteem extended
by their fellows equally to all these Old Planters, but to give to
his descendants a faithful portrait of their ancestor as he was in
America.

The life of John Woodbury is interesting in other points of
view than those appertaining to his descendants. It is the life of
a pioneer of American settlers, starting from his comfortable
home in England, and throwing himself on the coast of an un-
known shore, not as an adventure, escapade or catastrophe, but to
stay, where there were none to bid welcome, and by his own en-
deavor to win a home for English men.

Like the Danes who overran England, their boats were their
base of operation, and the great race instinct that guided the Scan-
dinavians blazed with new force in these Old Planters and held
them tenaciously to the shores, till the tales their foothold made
roused the slumbering, restless energy which the Viking blood
had infused into the British race, and drew them to their great

OF THE WOODBURY FAIMILY. 37

mission of conquering and occupying a continent as a homestead
for their race.

In face of this sublime instinct of the race, its creeds and
theology were merely the accidents, and not the causes of the
mission laid by destiny upon its pioneer.

I have slightly indicated how its impelling force fell on the
churchmen, Separatists and Puritans, but had it not been extrane-
ous to my purpose, I could equally have shown the Catholics of
the race yielding to the same instinct and throwing their enero-ies
in the same direction.

The history of race progress on this continent demonstrates
the accidental specialties caused by creed faded away as the races
increased in numbers and force, giving place to a broad and equal
sense of justice, religious toleration, and a common purpose to
develop and establish that pre-feudal, Gothic and Teutonic lib-
erty which, long smothered in Europe beneath the oppression of
feudal institutions, lay torpid and nearly dead.

It was not to any rare quality in leaders that the successful
planting of America was due ; the brilliancy of Cortez, Pizarro
and De Soto found no prototypes in these colonies. But there
was a power in the men which has shown from that time to this,
an individuality and self-reliance which has pushed forward in its
advance across the continent, the pioneer at the front, grim,
wary, determined, cool, with capacity to live at the solitary fron-
tier, never abandoning a step once gained on the wilderness,
ever pushing forward to the Pacific, And following him with
rapid steps, the plough, the slow milling of civilization, the school,
the sawmill, the organic town meeting, and the church.

The avant courier of the flowing tide of emigrants that was
to press across the sea and plant by his side and his associates not
a mere and humble colony, but a broad state. First and foremost
indicator of the work to be theirs, they protected the cowed and
beaten Indians from their fierce and powerful enemies seeking to
extirpate them.

It would be insult to think a record like his distasteful to
thoughtful minds.

38 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

In all this adumbration of the future, John Woodbury seems
to me one typical figure of the men in whom that spirit dwelt.
As we trace him here, the very limnings and pictures of the rise
and progress of the white race in New England expands before
our eyes, their forest wealth, the ownership of domestic animals
and cattle, their fisheries, sawmills, the falling back of the Indian
before the swelling ranks of the invaders, and the growth and
shaping of civil government and the molding of order, whether
under the mild government of the Great Council of Plymouth or
the jealous exclusiveness of the Bay Puritans — all are before us in
the lives of him and these Old Planters, whom, as citizens, each
dynasty held in esteem.

Without pretending they were, in any sense, the guiding
spirits of the Puritan peculiar, theological and civil idiosyncracies
to which they conformed, under the later government, the ration-
al and liberal thought of this advanced civilization now looks back
upon these pioneers as types of the thought and purpose we hold
today, and, therefore, more in harmonious development with the
glorious band of succeeding explorers who have pressed forward
and clung to every vantage ground until, from ocean to ocean, and
from the pole almost to the tropic, waves the flag and dwells the
mystic conquering race.

We also feel that there is due to their pluck and independence
a strong reaction on the corporation and its active freemen who
resisted its tendency to introduce feudal English tenant systems,
and compelled it to substitute the fee-simple holdings that are the
best legacy the corporation has left the country.

It is clear he did not sympathize with the exclusive doctrine of
the reign of the Saints, of whom he was, nor with the exclusion of
the Gentiles from participation in the privileges of the Charter,
but his orderly instinct made him sustain the law and order of the
established government in preference to anarchy.

The record of his active industry and the esteem of his towns-
men is necessary to complete the evidence of the well-balanced,
serious mind, the persistence of his energy, the breadth of his

OF THE AVOODBUEY FAMILY. 39

capacity for usefulness in society. He was no holiday man.
Work was a religion with him. The judicial discretion with which,
from 1636 to 1641, he performed his part of the deputed functions
of granting lands to the new inhabitants, is fairly proven by his an-
nual reelection to continue in the same office. What I gather of
the religious opinions of John Woodbury is told without comment.

From the faith in Woden to Holy Church, and from Holy
Church to the last new light in the church of the Pilgrims or Spir-
itualism, this race has gone through many creeds, and now holds
many. I forbear to disturb the living or the dead. Man's reli-
gious opinions are not the subject of praise or blame, but for his
philanthropy, charity and love of liberty, he must ever be on trial.

It is, therefore, sufficient to mark that the evidence of John
Woodbury's Christianity harmonized with his being a man of
humanity, and in the harsh and narrow age in which he lived, he
endured reproach for his love of liberty and toleration of private
opinion of others.

" The Old Planters," the pioneer of England's hope, were
cast in no ordinary mold, undertook no common expedition. They
were judicious and determined, neither hare-brained nor reckless,
counting carefully the danger and obstacles. English capital was
not resourceful unless they on the ground demonstrated ability to
cope with all obstacles.

The work of these few men was the seed of the large enter-
prises which followed in their wake. The strain and stress was at
the beginning. The first crop, the first yearling, the first winter-
ing, the first peace on land and sea. Numbers came when suc-
cess was assured.

Unlike other attempts at colonization, Plymouth was alive
and on a larger scale though not* a success thus far. It taxed the
manly force in every point, agricultural, stock-breeding, economy,
prudence in managing, good government, caution as to Indians,
French pirate enemies, arms for protection, block-houses for de-

40 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

fence, food and boats for intercourse with the fishing fleets in sea-
son, one hundred miles eastward, or with Plymouth, fifty miles
away or so, to the southwest.

They were three thousand miles from base without a packet
and always open to a swift destruction before the home port could
even know they were menaced. They were to coerce Nature to
furnish land and sea food and they were to defend themselves
against man, savage and civiUzed, both his secret surprises and
open violence. For all this, they were to depend on themselves
for eleven months of the year.

Such men impart their vigorous tone, reviving the drooping
energies of those about them ; emulous for their cause, they risked
life, fortune, honor, for liberty, and through perseverance their re-
ward was liberty !

Despite of kings, parliament, armies, confiscations, attainders
on the one side and lethargy, faint-heartedness, selfishness on the
other, they vanquished ! With righteous joy at their victory, they
went on tilling their soil and raising their children on the love of
God and liberty.

The magnitude of the results that have followed their success-
ful struggle must plead for the mystic power, the guiding prov-
idence that touched the souls of these men of iron will, and urged
them to a contest apparently so unequal, but so fateful for the
future of this continent and its now teeming millions, and, let us
hope, for the civil liberty of all the peoples of the earth !

CHAPTER III.

CONTRIBUTORY CLAUSES.

THE old meeting-house : —
" Puritanism " was not a plant of English, but of conti-
nental origin. The English Puritans sought in the Dutch
and Huguenot churches for the founders of church government,
and the attack on the ritual and organization of the Church of Eng-
land was outcome of a love of change and fatigue of the mind at
a too protracted thought conservatism.

Grace had descended through the priesthood to the people
until they were wary, and the hint of St. Thomas Aquinas on the
divine rights of the people had fructified in a theory that grace
was devolved on the priests by the people. The rock on which
the church was founded was that its apostolic descent was with
the people and in the people. The superstructure the priests,
once confirmed, tried to raise on this foundation, was, that like all
other priests, they became the conduit of grace and infallibility.
Their church government swung from one end of the arch to the
other, and the persecution of the temporary ascendant and the
compromises for peace are the materials of the history of the past
as they will be of the future. There was nothing in all this, par-
ticularly English. When they obtained power in England through
political intrigue, they failed in its retention. So, also, in New
England. The priest power rose on the doctrine of the unity of
creed and government. The American light which overpowered
all these lesser rays was that the divine right of the people re-
quired no classified code for its expression.

41

42 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Originally, the clergy were college bred, Cambridge being the
alma mater of most of them. By the union of church and state,
they exercised great influence in parish by direct, in state by
synodic expression.

As founders of a new creed, their Hebrew was of account.
The new clergy were less polished, less cultured ; they merely trod
a beaten way. Their parish had a strong say on them, nor was it
as subordinate as in England. Disputes were of frequent occur-
rence, and the inhabitants and Freemen were as well taught as
their fathers ; school system, liberal theology, was slowly moving
in on them, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers. The
people were growing intellectually. Wider trade and commerce,
broader views, wealth, neither official nor clergy nor inherited,
developed. A soldier class, result of wars, was leavening the
mass.

The official class now was native born. The clergy, perhaps,
lacked the polish of the Cambridge classics, but they had sufficient
for the needs of their people, of theology, law and physic.

In the times when John Woodbury lived, neither Churchman
nor Puritan in the court or in the country, thought of separating
religion and politics. Each party sought for political power as a
means of controlling the patronage of the church and state. The
Puritans preferred preaching hell fire, the Churchmen inclined to
ritual. The Puritans allied themselves to the country party, the
stiff Churchmen to the court party.

Each designed to seize the church for itself and to exclude
the other. By aid of penalties and prisons to crush the weaker
into conformity as they had already oppressed the unhappy Cath-
olics. The Catholics alone begged for toleration. The Puritans,
strong in their connection with the country party who controlled
the House of Commons, denounced toleration as a crime against
the law of man and of God.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 43

The court party, after dissolving Parliament, proposed to
carry on the government mainly by revenues derived from civil
and religious penalties and forfeitures.

Laud, who governed the church, used the full extent of
power. The Star Chamber and ecclesiastical courts worked to a
common end and constituted a powerful lever for detaching the
country party from sympathy with the church and for building
up Puritanism.

Though bitterly resenting the persecution of Laud and his
following, they sought for the political power to substitute their
own standards of church organization and tenets, and use the
same means to persecute the churchmen into conformity.

The leading politicians on either side were distinguished by
their ardent piety and theology, or, what is the same thing, the
theologians on each side were ardent politicians. At this distance
it is hard to distinguish the true piety which existed. Cant was
everywhere. The court party claimed the king was head of the
church. The country party, in order to hold their allies, advanced,
in 1628, the popular idea that Parliament was head of the church.

At the time of the Puritan emigration here, there was no de-
fined plan of church government in the country party as a whole.
The charter government and the church government, with its
peculiar combination with the former, were gradually devised and
developed.

The control of the charter legislation reverted more to the
methods of Catholic times than to the House of Lords after the
reformation.

After the charter, the political Puritans and their preachers
here were employed politically in framing the method of union of a
government based on church membership and also in forming the
dogma of their church ; for the minority, after each decision, had
to see the majority wave the "Sword of the Kalifs," " Submit and
embrace the faith," or receive exile, prison, fines, scourgings or
death.

44 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Even Saltonstal], one of the original grantees, wrote the zeal-
ots from England that the brethren at home were becoming
alarmed at their carrying so high a hand.

John Woodbury had sat under the Episcopalian ministry of
the Rev. Mr. Lyford at Cape Ann and at Salem, whose Christian
services had been " tolerated " by the brethren of Dorchester ad-
venturers.

He joined the first church organized at Salem, under the new
charter, in 1629, and continued a member until his death. The
terms "father" and "brother" applied to him in the records
show respect for his practical Christianity.

In connection with the doctrine of " religious toleration " and
" civil liberty " of Roger Williams, Woodbury's position demon-
strated that his convictions were with the apostle on this subject,
and that he thought genuine piety was not promoted by invoking
the arm of the civil power against liberty of conscience. No-
where do we find him acting the zealot's part.

The reputable positions he occupied in public affairs seem to
have been gained by his capacity for business and force of charac-
ter. Following back to his first coming, selected because of con-
fidence in his ability, the business men of Dorchester, when they
considered the enterprise had failed, the "miscarriages by land,"
absolved him from all blame.

Hubbard is precise that Mr. White solicited Conant, Wood-
bury, Balch and Palfrey because of their character, to undertake a
iiezu settlement at Nahumkeag, promising them men, goods and
supplies, a commendation sustained by his associates.

In 1627, they selected and despatched to England, John
Woodbury, to confer as to the future of the settlement, the sup-
plies, the promised men and, more than all, the patent which was
to secure the enterprise to those who were bearing the heat and
burden of the day.

Woodbury sailed early in the autumn on some of the return-
ing fishing vessels, arrived in due season at England, and entered
on his business. The deposition of his son Humphrey shows

OF THE ^YOODBURY FAMILY. 45

that he visited his friends and remained some half-year. It can-
not be said that as explorer and first messenger from this new
Canaan of Nahumkeag, he returned " bearing bunches of grapes "
nor yet that he bore the Golden Fleece, like Jason, back to native
shores, yet it can be assumed that he carried with him a promising
store of beaver skins, which assimilated to the classic golden fleece
in intrinsic value and attraction.

His months of renewed life in that fertile land where his kin
resided, brightening his social ties, his return to the luxury of civ-
ilization, was a treat to the Old Planter of Cape Ann. His mis-
sion ended, with " a comfortable answer " he started to return.

The man who now looks from the hoe at Plymouth or Dor-
chester, toward America, may think of 'patent cultivators, reapers,
telephones, telegraphs, gas, electric lights. The man who, in 1628,
took his last look at the " Scilly," as the good craft, hauled up on her
course, said, " My native land, good night," concerned himself not
with these things, yet was hopeful and at peace.

I cannot aver that he fled from persecution, but I think his
mind was heavy with the thought whether he should arrive at
Nahumkeag before his corn was all planted.

When Endicott came to America Woodbury was one of his
first council. On the arrival of the Bay Corporation, he was one
of the first oi^cers elected. There was energy and vigor about
him, and, as Carlyle would say, " no slop." All the town and
county business devolved on him alone, or with a local committee
of his own selection.

Level and uniform in his bearing, assiduity and perseverance
marked his conduct. The continuous occupancy of posts of trust
shows his integrity and usefulness, and his busy profession as sur-
veyor indicates his ability, practical, mathematical education, and
sturdy health.

John Woodbury had laid his claim to fame before Endicott
came over. He was there, an " Old Planter." The succession
of Puritans, Quakers, Churchmen, Catholics, of English, Irish,
Scotch, French, German and Scandinavians who have poured in

46 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

since have given more prominence to that title which in his Hfe he
probably regarded without thought of the romance which might be
hung about it by the future.

In the history of the Puritan administration of the monopoly
charter King Charles granted, John Woodbury had no prominence.
The chartered adventurers on their arrival found him here ; and,
useful, respected, trusted by his neighbors, he remained till the
great summons called him home.

The honor of having been pioneer in a new country has been
prized in all ages of the world. A mystic and indefinable halo
clings around the meager record of the deeds and throws a heroic
hue on their personal character.

The old planters of Massachusetts have left a numerous race
of descendants who in each generation have contributed their
share to the character, ability, and patriotism of the country.

In a more general way, at a future time, I hope to show the
influence they and their promoters in England, as the Great
Council and the Rev. Dr. White, Bulstrode and others, including
the well-abused Sir F. Gorges and Captain Mason, exercised on
the settlement of these shores.

The reader will find that to the Old Planters of Cape Ann
and Nahumkeag I ascribe an honorable precedence as pioneers in
the settlement over the more numerous and subsequent Puritan
migration of English, Puritans, Scotch, Irish, Scandinavians, Ger-
mans and Chinese who m successive waves have followed them to
these shores.

I have also claimed for Governor Gorges and his council in
1623, the precedence due to the first lawful chartered government
established and resident in New England, under the flag and by
the authority of Great Britain.

I hope this will not be considered as detraction to the wor-
thies who came after or before, whether Norse or French or Brit-
ish in their blood, Pagan, Puritan, Christian, Episcopalian, in
creed, nor to the nations from whence they came.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 47

I admit the merit of Champlain and De Monts, of the holy
men who planted the cross at Mount Desert. I admit the pre-
eminence of the Pagan and Norsemen who saw Vinland fair when
this hemisphere was warmer than it is now, and built the " old
mill " at Newport.

I shall plead nolo contendere as to that old Celt, Madoc, Prince
of Wales, but I will continue to ascribe as among the English-
speaking people, all due honor to the Leyden pilgrims at Plymouth
and to the other English-speaking people who made these shores
their habitation, prior to the grant of corporate powers to the
holders of the Bay Patent in 1628.

Among these, but not the most prominent, a fair type for his
settlement, let John Woodbury and American history be told.

In discussing these early settlers, let us not make the mis-
take of assuming the body of the people were of the lower order.
On the contrary, servants and laborers were comparatively few in
number. A strong proportion of them -wqxq freemen, sovereigns
of the corporation, and they would not have any class above them.

No pretence of convenience could induce them to give up
their annual election of corporate officers. Many of them retained
land in England. They came here to get rid of neighbors whom
they did not like, either for church or political reasons.

They were rich in political virtues, and posterity owes them a
debt of gratitude for the liberty it enjoys. It was no land of
Indies or Peru, this hard soil of Massachusetts, and the men whose
humors led them here often felt grateful for legacies left to them
by relatives in England. Sometimes, they were able to devise to
those across the sea a portion of the gains of the New World, but
this was an exception.

It has been the habit of many to criticise the early colonies'
conduct to the Indians rather severely, I think unjustly.

48 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

At the far west of New England were the Mohegans, a strong
tribe ; east of the country, the Narragansetts, Pequots, Wam-
panoags ; the Pequots were attacked and destroyed in 1635 by the
English, and the Mohegan allies and the remnant scattered
among other tribes.

Then the Narragansetts and Mohegans began bickering and
the English protected their allies, the Mohegans, and endeavored
to keep the peace. The Narragansetts grew hostile and the
United Colonies compelled peace in 1652-53-54. Chafing under
this and other causes, King Philip of the Wampanoags made
treaty with the Narragansetts ; and there broke out the war of
1675.

But there is some sentiment on the reverse side. In King
Philip's war, Peter Woodbury wwas killed, and Hezekiah Willet,
but not at Philip's desire. Others allied in blood with our ances-
tors were taken. Nicholas Woodbury, Edward Traske and Batch-
elder were made prisoners by the Indians. To the descendants of
frontiersmen shall not the sorrowful affliction which our ancestors
endured count for something on the balance sheet ?

What is true in my family has a counterpart, in all probability,
in the other families on the frontier. Many of them can tell a
much more sorrowful tale.

The instinct of self-preservation was strong in the settler and
successful. In the Indian, it, or what stood in its place, was un-
successful. The habits, temperament and policy of the Indian
antagonized the white man. Neither would assimilate, and the
latter had to protect himself, though he often was called on by
the Indian to aid him and shield him from enemies of his own
race.

Nor was there lacking friendships between the two. Mr.
Endicott related to Governor Braddock instances of the Indian's
attachment to the Old Planters, but was warned by the cynical
Londoner to distrust the aborigine.

But these Old Planters had no ordinary power in impressing
their individuality. The chimeras and the real dangers vanished

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY. 49

before their resolute footsteps as if touched by the spear of Ithu-
riel. Earth, sky and water yielded their product ; the Indian
crouched submissive at their feet. Ice, cold, snow, the summer
heat, fever, alike glided harmless by their sides.

Their benevolence could protect the heathen Indian. The
fine edge of their own righteousness was not tarnished by eating
frequently with the unregenerated Indian and sowing their corn in
common. Sentiment may say it was wrong for the whites to
emigrate here at all, but this reproach does not become the mouths
of those who are enjoying the fruits of the labor of the pioneers.
Does it pay, this sensitiveness for Indians whose place we occupy
on this continent ?

They succeeded the race of mound builders even as we suc-
ceeded them. Yet, as there is a vein of sentiment in the white
race, it should be recognized and receive its proper food. It can-
not be overlooked that Mr. John Brown and Captain Thomas Wil-
let were very kind to, and were held in high esteem by, Massasoit
and his sons, Alexander and Philip. Nor can it be doubted that
John Woodbury and Roger Conant at Cape Ann and Nahumkeik
were very humane and friendly to the Indians of Miantonomoh's
tribe, defending them against their Tarrantine enemies.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MAYPOLE IN NEW ENGLAND.

THE Puritans were shocked at the maypole at Merrymount,
but not more than they had been at home in England,
where the maypole and the dances which King James had
authorized and sanctioned under the Established Church, were a
part of the Sunday afternoon amusements of good Episcopalians
but forbidden to dissenters.

The honor of raising the first maypole in New England, al-
though claimed by the Honorable John Ouincy Adams for Merry-
mount, must be awarded to the loyal fishermen who frequented
Damarell's Cove in Maine, 1621-22.

Phineas Pratt, in his quaint narrative of his early experience
in New England, says :

" Wanting a pilot, we arrived at Damarell's Cove. The men
who belonged to the ship there, fishing, had newly set up a may-
pole and we were very merry."

This was about the beginning of May, 1622, as we should in-
fer from the rest of the narration.

" The merry fishermen of the many ships at Damarell's Cove "
and at "Monhiggan," rejoicing over a good catch, drinking the
nut-brown ale of Somerset and the cider of Devon, as they played
like porpoise or dolphin tricks of their merriment about their may-
pole, appear, according to good Phineas, to have had hearts of
sturdy stuff, for they supplied the agents of the starving settle-
ment of Plymouth with provisions to keep them till their own
ships should arrive.

It would be curious to gather in array the admissions of the
Pilgrims of how often th6y were helped and saved by these gen-

50

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 51

erous maypole roysterers of Damarell's Cove and Monhiggin from
starvation.

The fisherman's heart was not confined by creeds, and the
evidence of tolerance for religious outcasts in an age when toler-
ation was not deemed a religious virtue should be recorded in
favor of the early influences of the maypole in New England.

The maypole is up
Now give me the cup,

ril drink to the garlands around it ;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose

The glory of flowers that crowned it.

Thus sang in Green Devon about this time the priest cousin
of one of the grim Puritans who came over with Endicott in 1629.

CHAPTER V.

PETER WOODBURY.

PETER WOODBURY the first was the youngest son of John
Woodbury, born at what was called Salem, in Massachusetts,
and baptized on July 19, 1640. His father died shortly after
his birth, but his mother, Ann or Agnes Woodbury, as she was
sometimes written, survived many years.

She was the executrix of hei» husband's estate and raised
these children of his old age. Humphrey Woodbury, a son by an
earlier marriage, was born about 1607, and consequently well
able, being thirty-four at this period, to assist the widow.

The baptismal records in the church give the name of the
youngest child as " Peeter." Whether named after the apostle to
whom the keys of the church were intrusted is not as probable as
that his name was a compliment to the celebrated Hugh Peters,
the living divine, and minister of the congregation. His house
lot adjoined that of John Woodbury and he had baptized the lat-
ter's last three children.

This Hugh Peter, or Peters, as he was indifferently called,
was a stirring and active man. He was afterward chaplain to
Oliver Cromwell, and was executed on the accession of Charles
the Second for his participation in the Regicide.

Little can be gathered about Peter's minority. He obtained
a good education, as is proved by his fine and bold penmanship,
and became a man of note among the little settlement of relatives
which soon grew up with the Old Planters as center, near Great
Pond.

From various facts, I infer the estate was kept together un-
til Peter came of age. The records show that in 1664 he made a

52

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 53

deed of five acres to one Hull. He was then twenty-four years
old. We find him referred to in 1666 in a deed given by Mr.
Conant to his son, Exercise. It describes a piece of marsh at
Great Pond, lying between the land of Balch and Peter Wood-
bury's.

In 1665 Peter was married to Abigail, daughter of John
Batchelder. She had been baptized at Salem February 12, 1642,
which indicates she was about two years his junior.

In 1660, Ann Woodbury, mother of Peter, had sold her house
in Salem and in all likelihood was residing with her son. On
the 1 2th of December, 1666, was born his first son, Peter, who
was baptized at Salem, July 21, 1667. It looks as if his wife Abi-
gail died before this baptism. * In July, 1667, Peter married again,
the bride on this occasion being Sarah, daughter of Richard
Dodge, who was baptized with her brother Richard on July 3,
1664. They were probably twins.

In the same month, the church members on that side of the
river petitioned to be set off into a separate church, and with
them several, not yet in full communion, desired to be demitted
with their parents. Among the latter we find the name of Peter
Woodbury, and among the former that of his mother, Ann Hum-
phrey, the half-brother of Peter senior, and some of his sisters.

In October, 1667, a petition was sent to the General Court
that a captain of their cavalry company might be selected from
their side of the river, as the residence of the present captain in
Salem was inconvenient. The bold and graceful signature of
Peter Woodbury appeared to this document.

He was admitted a member of the Bass River church on Octo-
ber 23. Here the Rev. Mr. Hale was then installed. His elder
brother Humphrey was already a deacon, and continued so to his
death, in 1686.

Peter was elected by the General Court to be a Freeman of
the Bay corporation April 27, 1668, and in this year the Bass
River side was set off and incorporated as a separate town with
the name of Beverley. The father of his wife, Richard Dodge,

64 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

was one of the petitioners for the new church at Bass River, and
resided in the Old Planter neighborhood in the new town. In fact,
the original grants of eighty acres each to William and Richard
Dodge are described as lying east of Conant's, Woodbury's and
Balch's lands.

Town and church records prove Peter's activity in local
affairs, often serving as committee in the objects of the one or the
other institution. There are notices of several small charges put
on him by the town or church, such as "gathering in the main-
tenance of the minister" and a few things of similar nature. He
evidently faithfully fulfilled his duties and enjoyed the home
where his children were gathering about him.

In 1671, he signed Roger Conant's petition to change the
name of the town to Budleigh, one reason being the early settlers
were from the southwest counties of England and wished to per-
petuate the place in their adopted land, but Governor Endicott,
who would have aided them, was dead and the Dorchester emi-
grants mostly gone to Connecticut. The General Court turned a
deaf ear to the natural and patriotic desires of the worthy old man.

Thus were the descendants of the original leaders of the Bay
Colony, the Old Planters, compelled to forego their historical
identity, and gild the respectable Yorkshire name of Beverley
with the renown and credit of their deeds and virtues. Now,
only the dry student of mouldy archives can recognize the fact
that the ancestors of the galaxy of brilliant men who have lent
honor to this town, in the first century of its existence, came, al-
most exclusively, from the southwestern counties.

The Herricks were from Leicester, but the brightest of their
name, the poet, spent the most of his life as pastor in Devonshire
and there wrote his still admired poems.

Involuntary shame compelled the General Court to make a
grant of land to Roger Conant in another town, in a few years,
but courtesy of the heart was wanting toward him and the early
Beverley settlers.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 65

In 1675 Peter Woodbury attained that honor which a New
Englander in all time has looked upon as certificate of his ability,
character, popularity, and gravity : he was elected one of the
selectmen of Beverley to manage the town affairs for the year.
By the New England standard, he was young for such a dignity.

It was a momentous year for Beverley. Captain Lathrop of
that town had gone to Connecticut with a company raised there
and in the neighborhood, and through his unfortunate over-
confidence had been cut off at Bloody Brook and his company
nearly exterminated.

In this fight was killed Peter Woodbury, born in 1652, the
son of Humphrey and nephew of our Peter. Essex county was in
mourning. " The flower of Essex " had fallen. The colony had
suffered its greatest loss since its beginning.

George Lunt, Esquire, thus sang :

But beating hearts, far, far away

Broke at their story's fearful truth,
And maidens sweet for many a day

Wept o'er the vanished dreams of youth,
By the blue, distant ocean tide ;

Wept for long years to hear them tell
How, by the wild woods' lonely side

The flower of Essex fell.

Mr. Lunt is indeed right :

they died,

Yet not in vain — a cry that shook
The inmost forest's desert glooms.

Swelled o'er their graves, until it broke
In storm around the red men's homes.

A monument, erected in 1835, ^^ Deerfield, marks this spot,
and the Hon. Edward Everett delivered an oration on the occa-
sion.

In 1676 the colony was in just alarm at the Indian war in
which it was involved, and ordered a committee of selectmen and

56 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

military to report on the military condition of Beverley to oppose
the enemy by sea and land.

Peter Woodbury, Paul Thorndike, John Dodge, John Ray-
ment, Samuel Corning and William Dixie, sign the report.

In 1676 Peter was elected one of the selectmen. He was
also elected with John Dodge and William Rayment " on the part
of this town to settle the boundaries of their respective towns
with the Wenham men."

He was a grand juror in 1677. This year, his uncle, William
Woodbury, died, aged eighty-eight years. In April, 1679, Peter
was made one of the " Perambulators " to remark the boundaries
between Lynn and Salem, which his father had helped to survey.

In 168 1 Peter bought of John and Abigail Hill her share in
the land of their late father. In June, 1682, his son, Josiah, was
born, our ancestor in the male line. (Mass. Archives, vol. 68,
p. 178.)

For the next three years he was continuously selectman. He
also purchased some lands of John Green and wife, lying in
Salem. In 1684 he was one of the administrators of the estate of
John Batchelder, late of Salem, and had a considerable share to
do with the bringing up of the four children of the intestate. In
1685 he returned an inventory of the estate of John Kettcl.

In this year died Humphrey Woodbury, aged eighty-eight,
holding for seventeen years the office of deacon in the First
Church, of which he was one of the original founders and mem-
bers.

In his will, dated March 4, 1865, he made his wife, Elizabeth,
executrix and appointed " Sergeant " Peter Woodbury to assist
her.

Peter was elected deacon in 1686. Thus these two sons of
John appear to have been pillars of orthodoxy in their town.

Stone's " History of Beverley" (we may as well use the mod-
ern spelling, hereafter) tells in the appendix, page 317, of a quaint
story of the Batchelder children having been admitted to baptism
on account of the belief that their parents, if living, would have

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 5T

joined the church. Probably Humphrey and Peter had aided in
bringing this about.

Some time between the date of his will, August i, 1685, and
return of inventory, November 11, 1686, Nicholas Woodbury, son
of William, died. His will appointed " Sergeant " Woodbury to
be one of the overseers. This will is in the records of Suffolk
county and bears on its back an endorsement, " Cousin Nicholas
Woodbury, Sen., His Will," probably from the hand of "Sergeant
Peter."

In 1689 Peter bore the title of "Lieutenant" Peter, in the
Provincial Records. As a military man in the colony held a high
social position. I have no doubt that as " sergeant " and "lieuten-
ant " Peter wore his sword whenever the etiquette of the country
demanded it. He continued so long in the service he must have
liked the honor. He was one of the troop of horse of Beverley.

He also became more prominent in local politics. The old
charter had been vacated since 1686, by mandamus, and Massa-
chusetts had become a royal province under Governor Andros.

As soon as the news came in the spring of 1689, that William
of Orange had landed in England in Devon and was advancing on
London, the people of Massachusetts seized the opportunity, threw
off royal authority as typified by King James's governor, and de-
manded his surrender and that of the forts to be held for the use
of the crown.

The legislature of the people convened to take the needed
steps, ad interim, and Lieut. Peter Woodbury was elected and
appeared as one of the deputies. He was at two separate conven-
tions of the body, May 8 and May 22. This was a responsible
and representative position, resting not on royal commission or
authority, but upon the sovereignty of the people, and it is re-
markable how little reluctance was displayed by the people or
their representatives in making an effort at self-government, self
constituted.

There were troubles and wars threatening and need of prep-
aration to avert or oppose the impending perils.

58 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

In 1689-90, Mr. Woodbury, with others, subscribed and lent
money to the town of Beverley "to buy great guns and ammuni-
tion for the defence of ourselves, in case of assault made upon us
by our Indians and that the money lent shall be paid by our town
to those respective persons within three years of the date hereof
and that there shall be built a fort for our safety in some con-
venient place, by the sea."

Parson Hale was directed by the General Court to attend the
Canada expedition as one of the chaplains. Deacon Peter Wood-
bury was one of a committee appointed by the town to remon-
strate with the General Court and obtain his release from the duty,
but the Court was obtuse and inflexible to their moving argu-
ments. One of the sons of Humphrey Woodbury went on this
expedition in Captain Rayment's troop from Beverley.

In 1692 Governor Phipps, who had been commissioned by the
new dynasty, organized the province and proclaimed the election
of deputies. The first reassembly since the revolution of the
General Court took place, June, 1692, when Peter Woodbury took
his seat as deputy from Beverley.

Were this history, rather than biography, I should indulge in
reflections on the sturdy quality of the people in instituting a gov-
ernment of order rather than law, without waiting for the royal,
feudal authority or intending its impeachment. Logically, it was
the declaration of self-government and the ultimate sovereignty of
the people, a precedent for the colonies in 1776, in repudiating
the entire royal and parliamentary authority.

That Peter Woodbury, a native born Freeman and deputy,
was a reponsible actor in this legislature might have been expected
now when in looking backward, from our day, we find his great
grandson, Peter Woodbury, in 1776, in the New Hampshire legis-
lature taking similar but advanced grounds in repudiating the rule,
not only of servants of the king, but the crown and parliament of
England. This proves that the fiber of the Old Planter, John
Woodbury, was woven in the fabric of his descendants.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 69

When at last a new charter was established under William
and Mary, Sir William Phipps, a native of Maine, came over as
the royal governor and called a legislature under its authority.
Peter Woodbury was elected a deputy from Beverley, the Free-
men wisely deciding to send those who had served in the provi-
sional legislature to represent them again as a guarantee that the
king's good will toward the province would not be frustrated by
legislative imprudence or official intrigue.

The February following the town reckoned with Peter for
seventy-six days as deputy, and there was due him eleven pounds,
eighty-five shillings.

In 1689 he became the executor of the will of his sister-in-
law, Elizabeth, the widow of Humphrey Woodbury. The notices
of him in the town and court records become less frequent now.
In 1694 he was town assessor. In 1695 one of a committee ap-
pointed by the Court to divide the lands of his late Cousin Nich-
olas ; in 1697 he again was a grand juror for the county ; in 1698
he was one of the committee of the church " for seating of the
people in the meeting house." This was a delicate task, involv-
ing tact and a thorough acquaintance with the grounds of every
member for precedence. None but antiquaries can now realize
the intricacies of this subject. The men, the women and the chil-
dren were seated separately in the church.

The question of rank and precedence was determined by their
wealth, their official positions, their gifts to the church, their fam-
ily, age, and so on. The position of the women followed that of
their husbands.

Stone's " History of Beverley" states the rules adopted by Col-
onel Hale and agreed to by the church, some twenty-five years af-
ter this date, and which substantially, though less sharply defined,
must have been in use long before in the orthodox meeting-house.

In my own recollection, in the country though pews had
taken the place of seats, the elders and deacons usually occupied
seats together, flanking the pulpit, where they could keep a good
lookout on the behavior of the congregation. It was an age

60 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

when sermons were an hour long, and I once saw a tithing man in
a country church rouse up the sleepers with a foxtail tied to a
stick, thus combining materialistic incentive with the dry hand-
ling of texts and foxtails.

In 1696-97 Peter Woodbury bought a lot of land from John
Rayment. At some time, the deed not on record, he had pur-
chased of Exercise Conant another tract of land. These were in
the line of provision for his numerous offspring, his wife Sarah
having borne him, beside his son Josiah, the mystic number of
seven daughters.

They are thus described in his will : Sarah, wife of George
Rayment; Abigail Lamson ; Anna, wife of John Herrick ; Martha
Brown ; Jerusha Raymond ; two unmarried, Priscilla and Rebecca.
The deacon had given each a portion on her marriage, making a
further legacy in his will. He had also helped his son Peter, who
was a very busy and prudent man. (Probate Records of Salem.)

On May 2, 1702, Peter set about making his will, and a strong,
well-considered, equitable document it was, according to the fash-
ion of the times. The lands were divided among the two sons
and charged with the support of his wife and with part of the
legacies to his daughters ; among others, there is inventoried
" One negro man-servant called Robin, fifteen pounds."

Rather a cheap chattel this would have been deemed before
the war of secession, but money is now five to seven times
cheaper than it was then. The deacon, in his care for his
wife, left her all his household goods and directed his sons to pro-
vide her with all that she required ; of his apple trees, reserving a
certain portion for her use.

Governor Endicott, according to the records of Essex county,
exchanged five hundred apple trees for a certain farm, which de-
notes they had considerable value.

The deacon was not averse to theological literature, his books
being appraised at a respectable value. I have some personal
knowledge of this, for in my possession is " Bullinger's Sermons
on the Apocalypse," printed in 1557. It has in it his signature

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY. 61

on the fly-leaf, " Peter Woodbury — 1704." The book may have
been his father's.

There are several entries in the book, made by his grandson
Josiah, which are very quaint. He writes :

" This good book has lain thus, I suppose, for eighty-eight
years and has not been read till I came to see it. Blessed be God
that I can read it, and I hope to gain good from it. Josiah Wood-
bury, Sept. 3, 1771." He adds : "I design to carry it to Rev'd
Joseph Champney for him to preach of the best sermons in it."

On another of its margins he writes :

" This book was my grandfather's, Deacon Peter Woodbury's
when Mr. Hale was minister in Beverley, my uncle Peter Wood-
bury was deacon at the same time. My father, Josiah Woodbury,
was born in the year of our Lord Christ Jesus 1682 — year the old
meeting house was built."

There are entries of his own marriage to Hannah Perkins of
Ipswich in 1731 and of the birth of their children. On the last
page of the book is again found : " Peter Woodbury's Book,
1704."

The book is a black letter folio, bound in soft parchment,
rather dilapidated, but enough left to enable the grandson, Josiah,
to write the record of his children. From Josiah it passed to the
" Cressys," and my grand-uncle, Mark Woodbury of Antrim, pro-
cured it from "Aunt Cressy." My father, Levi Woodbury,
obtained it from his uncle Mark, more than fifty years ago, and
at my father's death in 185 i, it passed to me, with his library.

"Aunt Cressy " was often spoken of by my father, but I do
not know through what line they trace.

The English Church clergy were instructed in the latter part
of the prior century to have " Bullinger's Decades " as a work of
theological instructions. This was by the same author.

When Peter made his will it was evidently with some doubts
of his health. His son Peter and his wife Sarah are the executors.
The witnesses were Elizabeth Hale, Sen., Robert Hale, and Eliz-
abeth Hale, his wife.

62 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Deacon Peter died on July 4, 1704. His wife Sarah survived
him until September 11, 1726, when she died aged eighty-four
years or thereabouts. As my grandfather descended from Josiah
and my grandmother from Peter, I shall follow the fortunes of
both sons.

Deacon Peter was an upright man, assiduous and pious, a
little addicted to the military and to town duties which he per-
formed like a good citizen, esteemed and trusted for his personal
integrity, and relied on in times of political commotion as having
a clear, cool head and prudent judgment joined to decided
opinions.

Love for the old homestead helped much to keep the paternal
acres together. March 13, 1681-82, a deed from his brother-in-
law, John Hill, and his wife Abigail, the sister of Peter, conveys
to Peter all the land formerly John Woodbury's, that had come to
them, viz., twenty-five acres, upland, bounded by Woodbury,
Dodge and Balch ; a lot in the marsh, and all that part of John
Woodbury's, now deceased, farm, date, June, 1681. From one
John Greene and wife, about the same time, he bought another
farm. From Henry Herrick and Edith, his wife, in 1668, another
lot of land was jointly bought by Peter Woodbury and William
Rayment.

Besides all that, he bought of various person-. Peter left at
his death about sixty-six acres, which would appear to have come
to him as his inheritance. Land in that same settlement was held
by his brother Humphrey or referred to as early as 1667.

Peter was evideritly a generous father and husband, and he
enjoyed that full confidence of his relatives which made him one
of the patriarchs among " ye Woodburys '"' of his day. The
steady piety that actuated his life, as well as his ability, is wit-
nessed by his long continuance as deacon of the church.

When the worthy deacon had "shufifled off his mortal coil "
he was laid at rest in the churchyard of the First Parish of Bever-
ley. The kindness of Mr. Gallup has furnished me with a tracing
of his o-ravestone :

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 63

" Here lies y body
of Peter Woodbury
aged sixty-four years, died

e
July y 5th

1704^"

Martha Woodbury, daughter of Deacon Peter, married, March
31, 1693, Ichabod Brown. Their son, the Rev. John Brown of
Haverhill, married Joanna Cotton.

A daughter of these, Elizabeth, married John Chipman,
Esquire, lawyer. They had twelve children, of whom Elizabeth,
born June 9, 1756, married Honorable William Gray of Salem,
lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, 1782. Mr. Justice Horace
Gray of the Supreme Court of the United States is their grand-
son. Another son of Elizabeth Brown Chipman was Ward Chip-
man, Esquire, who emigrated in 1776 to the British possessions
and became solicitor general of New Brunswick, judge of the
Supreme Court, commissioner on boundary with the United
States, and many other dignities were his distinction.

The Rev. John Brown had six sons and four daughters. He
died December 2, 1742. His third daughter married the Rev. Ed-
ward Brooks of Medford, and from them descended Peter G.
Brooks, Esquire, whose daughters married Charles Francis Adams,
minister to England, Edward Everett, secretary of state, Mr.
Frothingham. Their children have also won honor.

In another line, from the Rev. Edward Brooks and Martha
Woodbury Brown's granddaughter are descended Bishup Phillips
Brooks of Massachusetts and his brothers. These form a wide-
spread list of worthies to look up to a common ancestress. I wish
I could tell you more of Martha.

CHAPTER VI.

PETER WOODBURY, SECOND.

BEFORE passing to Peter Woodbury, second, I will dwell a
little on the collateral Woodburys, beginning with Nicholas,
the son of William Woodbury, and cousin of Peter Wood-
bury, first.

Nicholas was baptized m South Petherton, County Somerset,
England, April 19, 1618.

His father married in church, January 29, 16 16, Elizabeth
Patch, and the record of baptisms of their children states Nicholas,
as above, William, May 7, 1620, and Andrew, March i, 1622. No
others were baptized in this parish.

Nicholas had been a prosperous man in navigation and the
fisheries, and he left what was a large fortune for that time, in-
cluding land in Great Yarmouth, England, which came with his
wife, Anna Palgrave, possibly. Briefly, this Nicholas had a son
Nicholas who married Mary Elliott, June 4, 1684. He died early,
leaving children, WiUiam, Judith, Andrew, Mary, and twins, who
died soon after his death, which was October 13, 1691.

The widow, Mary Woodbury, married Captain Kingsley Hall,
provincial counselor, usually of Exeter, New Hampshire. (Cap-
tain Hall's first wife was daughter of Rev. Samuel Dudley, de-
scendant of Governor Dudley, by whom he had a son, Josiah, and
perhaps others.)

The Essex records show that she rendered accounts of her
husband's and children's estates March 18, 1705-06.

Mary Woodbury of Beverley, Mass., was born August 23, 1689.

Josiah Hall of Exeter and Mary Woodbury were published,
as mtending marriage, March 30, 1702, and they were married by
Robert Hale, Esquire, May 22, 1712. Of their children were :

64

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 66

Elizabeth Hall, who married Tobias Lear, and was grand-
mother of Washington's secretary.

Mary Hall, who married John Langdon, and was mother of
Governor Langdon and Judge Langdon of New Hampshire, and
also grandmother of Admiral Storer.

John Elwyn's book gives the details of the other descendants
of Mary Hall.

A son of Woodbury Langdon, viz., Walter, married a daugh-
ter of John Jacob Astor of New York.

From Humphrey Woodbury through the Salem (N. H.)
Woodburys, a line runs to the wife of Governor Martin of Great
Falls, or Dover, New Hampshire.

Deacon Peter Woodbury the second, son of Deacon Peter
Woodbury the first, who died in 1704, and his wife Abigail (Batch-
elder), she being his first wife, was born in 1666, December 12.

In 1690, eighth day, first month, he was received in full com-
munion in the first church at Beverley.

He married the widow of Mr. Dodge, Mary Dodge, and in
the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day, 1690, his wife was
received in the First Church. In October, the twenty-sixth day of
the month, 1704, Peter Woodbury, Jr., was chosen to the office of
deacon. The town records do not contain much about Deacon
Peter, Jr. In 1701, he was surveyor.

Stone's " History of Beverley," page 22, says that Deacon
Peter, Jr., owned the estate now occupied by Benjamin Woodbury
in the second parish and lived in the same house. The homestead has
remained in the family since the first settlement. I had often seen
this house from the cars. On July 17, 1882, I drove with my sis-
ter down that beautiful shore road through Manchester and Bev-
erley P'arms into Beverley, enjoying the southeast wind that tem-
pers the heat, and turned to North Beverley. We reached the tract
that had in 1635 been granted to the five Old Planters of Nahum-
keag, of whom was our ancestor, John Woodbury.

It is a fertile plain. The crops looked rich in their abun-
dance, and the small hills of Danvers and Cherry, near Wenham
pond, gave relief to the plain and broke the line of the horizon.

66 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

It was a two-story house of the New England order, substan-
tial, with two large elms in the West of England style in front
and towering above it, two large barns and farm ofifices. The
weight of evidence is that the widow of John lived here, also
her son Peter, so it represents every generation that lived in
America.

We had the satisfaction of knowing we were in a house built
long before Queen Anne's time, and in all probability whose
hearth had smoked with the good cheer and warmth of the colo-
nists before the royal martyr lost his head ; whose rafters were
already smoke-stained when Cromwell grasped the state with his
iron will and held England as his puppet and her nobles as his
serfs.

This house was bequeathed to Peter by his father, and had
been occupied by the son some years before his death.

I find it referred to in two deeds of 1696 as "The house
where Peter Woodbury, Jr., now liveth." The date it was built I
have not ascertained.

Peter Woodbury, second, died January 8, 1706. He left
three sons and four daughters, Joseph, Benjamin, Peter, Mary,
Abigail, Mercy, Rebecca. Of these Peter was born June 20, 1705,
and was the great-grandfather of my father, through his son,
James Woodbury.

The widow of Deacon Peter Woodbury, second, was highly
respected by her community, which styled her " Madam Wood-
bury." She was quite a noted person in Beverley. There is the
death of some of her negroes in Col. Robert Hale's list.

The second parish was incorporated in 1713. Stone's " His-
tory of Beverley " informs us that in 171 5, after a strenuous con-
test. Rev. Dr. Chipman was settled as minister by the casting
vote of Madam Woodbury.

This was the initiation of Woman's Rights in New England.
She had been one of the endowers of the church. Madam Wood-
bury died November 20, 1763, aged ninety. (Joseph Woodbury's
Family Bible, Sutton.) (Essex Historical Collection, page 233.)

CHAPTER VII.

PETER WOODBURY, THIRD.

PETER. Woodbury, third, was the son of Peter, second, and his
wife Mary. He was born June 20, 1705, and received into
the church January 21, 1728. He married Hannah Batch-
elder, descended from Joseph Batchelder of Wenham, who was a
deputy to the General Court, 1636, and one of the committee to
revise the laws of the Commonwealth, 1731. Hannah was re-
ceived first into the church at Wenham.

I do not know how many other children they had, but four sons are
recorded. James, born June 4, 1738; Joseph; John, born November 8,
1743; Peter, who died September 3, 1813. From John have descended
those who hold the North Beverley place.

In addition to his house and land, Peter became one of the
proprietors of Souhegan, West, now Amherst, N. H. (Stone's
" History of Beverley.")

This is one of the townships granted by Massachusetts to
those engaged in the Narragansett War, nearly a century earlier.
The records show February 12, 1738, he became owner of a full
share, by deed from Eben Hawks of Marblehead. October 4,
1754, he purchased from Stephen Foster of Lanenberg, province of
Massachusetts, lot sixty-two in second division, Souhegan, West.
Probably he made some visits to this settlement and looked upon
the lands where he expected some of his boys to settle, clear and
build up homesteads for themselves and posterity, as his ances-
tors had for him-

In 1765, May 2, he granted by deed to his son James of Bev-
erley, "for love and affection," seventy-one acres, and seventy-
two acres, (two lots of land,) in second division in said township,

67

68 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

these lots including all then divided out of the common lands,
which I presume, he was entitled to in severalty.

The lot drawn in the fourth and last division by the proprie-
tors and given in his will to his son James, in 1775, would proba-
bly make up his holding in that township, as the lots accorded by
three of the divisions among the proprietors are accounted for by
these deeds.

As stated, Souhegan, West, had been granted by Massachu-
setts, but when the boundary line had became fixed it was found
included in New Hampshire ; however, the rights of the settlers
were preserved to them, and in 1760, the township was incorpo-
rated by the name of Amherst by the governor and council of
New Hampshire.

Mr. Woodbury took much interest in this matter and proba-
bly felt some disappointment at the result, but the fortunes of the
proprietors did not wane. The settlement slowly expanded.

It is noticeable he bought this share in the township shortly
after the birth of his eldest son James.

One peculiarity of New Englanders w:s that usually the
homestead came down to the youngest son, the eldest being ex-
pected to set up for himself. When he came of age, though,
in the earlier days, he was entitled to two shares in the division of
his father's estate. Before James was a year old the path was
laid for his becoming a New Hampshire farmer.

The will of Mr. Woodbury has some quaint divisions :

" Item : I give my well beloved son James Woodbury that
fourth division lot in the town of Amherst, in the province of New
Hampshire, which he hath already drawn out and that together
with what I have heretofore given him, I call his share of my
estate."

The inventory of his estate in Massachusetts was made by
Josiah Batchelder and William Dodge.

It seemed from his will he had made considerable advances to
his sons in his life. The homestead, land and buildings he gives
to his son John; other lands outlying, to Peter and Joseph. He

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 69

makes an ample contribution from his sons' for his wife's support
and for his sister Mercy, who seems to have been dependent on
him.

" I give my gun to my grandson Peter," a boy about ten, son
of John Woodbury. Hardly did he know that he would sanctify
that gun in the cause of liberty before his gift took effect. It
was evident that guns would be needed for the service of God and
liberty. His pew in the church was to go to his wife and then to
John.

I have not hunted up in the records what Peter Woodbury
did in town and politics. His will shows a well-balanced mind.
He lived in the old Woodbury homestead, depicted in my '• Life
of John Woodbury."

He appears October, 1755, " Peter Woodbury, Sr.," as one of
Colonel Plaisted's regiment, reviewed by Muster Master Reed.
In a few years, his young son James enlists in Colonel Bagley's
regiment with his father's consent.

Evidently these were recruits and drafts collected for Crown
Point where possibly a regiment under Colonel Plaisted may have
been in service.

Immediately after the victory of General Johnson over Dies-
kan near Lake George, Governor Shirley called for two thousand
men to reinforce the army at Lake George. Plaisted's was one of
the regiments, as near as I can discover. (Essex Hist. Coll., vol.
29, page 170, i8q2. Province Archives, vol. 93.)

Whether it marched to the lake that year I am not sure.
Further research (Mass. Archives, vol. 94, page 22), return
" Peter Woodbury of Beverley in Captain Flynt's company in
Camp at Lake George, Nov. 22, 1755, as on invalid list." Follow-
ing return (Mass. Archives, vol. 9J, page J 79) : " Peter Wood-
bury corporal in Samuel Flynt's company, Col. Ichabod Plaisted's
Reg't, Feb. 28, 1756."

Thus it would appear that he marched on Lake George and
was on duty during the winter.

70 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Peter Woodbury, son of Josiah, was born in 1738, consequent-
ly in 1755, the suffix "Senior" determined that it was Peter,
born in 1705, who was the provincial soldier.

A more remarkable service awaited him. April 19, 1775,
the North Beverley company marched to the battle of Lexington,
coming up with the retreating enemy and engaging him. The
State Archives (Lexington Alarms, vol. 12, page 34), shows
that Peter Woodbury was one of this company with the rank of
sergeant. Stone's " History of Beverley," page 61, states :

" Captain Joseph Rea who commanded a company of militia
mounted his horse and posted with all despatch to the farms, with
the intelligence, and Captain Dodge and others following his ex-
ample, rode off in other directions. The call to resist this act of
aggression met a hearty and united response.

" The farmer left his plough in the field, the mechanic his
work shop, the merchant his store. Before three o'clock, p. m., a
large proportion of the population, capable of bearing arms, had
gone forth to march to the rescue."

Among these Samuel Woodbury was wounded, from Bev-
erley.

Captain Dodge's company were " minute men " formed
months before this date at the request of the Provincial Congress,
in February, armed and trained to resist any aggression on Colo-
nial liberties, already threatened by the British parliament and its
army. They were to consist of at least a fourth of the town's
militia, and as they represented the political as well as military
ideal of the people, old men of standing and vigor were readily
accepted in order to add to the prestige of the array for the de-
fense of liberty.

A noted example is found in this company. Captain Dodge
was sixty-one ; Sergeant Woodbury was within two months of
seventy, hale, hearty and full of enthusiasm, wealthy, reputable,
one who had already seen service and therefore better able to
bring minute men into efficient discipline.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 71

His will was dated in March of that year and describes his
health as good. Stone states these minute men were often men
of mature age and high position who enlisted to lend their influ-
ence and their arms to the great cause struggling for organization.

Mr. Woodbury died May 14, 1775. This active march from
Beverley to New East Cambridge, where they met the enemy, must
have Fold on his strong constitution. It was consolation of his last
days that he had lived to use his gun himself against the British
mercenaries, in defense of Colonial liberty.

My father, in one of his speeches on the pension system, his
first term in the senate, speaks of his own relative, who left the
dead unburied and hurried to the fight of the Revolution. He
often told me that it was true, but I forget the name. The ser-
vices and death of this Peter answer to it and prove our family*s
loyalty to liberty.

Peter's son James was the ancestor, among others, of Gov-
ernor Straw of New Hampshire. He is traced through the
Fiske family. Governor Straw lived at Manchester, N. H., and
was agent of the factories, or some of them, for a great many
years. He was respected for his solid qualities both by business
men and political associates, who gave him their highest honor.

Peter's son John lived until 181 3. He left children, John,
Peter, Hannah, Mary, James and Benjamin.

Peter's son Joseph settled in Sutton, Mass., and died in
18 16. From him descended Governor Woodbury of Vermont,
who was wounded in the Rebellion and is now (1895) the gover-
nor. He lost an arm in service.

Capt. Caleb Dodge of the North Beverley company was
born in 1714- He married Hannah Woodbury of Salem, and he
was the son of Robert Dodge and Lydia Woodbury, daughter of
Isaac and Elizabeth Ilerrick Woodbury, of Chebucco, and there-
fore, cousin-german to the wife of Peter Woodbury of Amherst,
N. H.

CHAPTER VIII.

JAMES WOODBURY.

JAMES WOODBURY, son of Peter Woodbury, third, was
born in Beverley, Mass., June 4, 1738. When serving in Cap-
tain Fuller's company for the reduction of Canada, in 1758,
he is described as a " minor," and the name of Peter Woodbury
appears under the head of " fathers and masters of sons under
age."

The kinship between him and the Peter who moved to New
Hampshire was second cousin, and each was three removes from
" Lieut. Peter."

There is much interest in James Woodbury's campaign in
the French war. The chaplain of Colonel Bagley's regiment and
the surgeon, Dr. Rea, each kept a journal, which have been
printed in the "Essex Historical Register," volume 13. In Chap-
lain Cleveland's account is given the story of the fight down Lake
George.

The army landed at the Narrows from its boats and formed
without opposition. The French withdrew, leaving burning
bridges behind, and were pursued about two miles when Bagley's
regiment was ordered to charge on the right. The fight lasted
an hour, and Lord Howe was killed. The army followed the
French to their works.

Then on the 8th of July came Abercrombie's fatal fiasco, at-
tacking with small arms when his cannon was not far off and could
have been used in support of the attack. Two thousand men
were lost. Bagley's regiment was again in the fight, for it had
earned a name, and two of James's neighbors were killed. The

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 73

army fell back unpursued to their landing, and the 9th sullenly re-
turned to the head of the lake, cursing Abercrombie for coming off
and his " Rehoboan counsellors." The enemy followed with their
scouts, making communication insecure. Captain Fuller's com-
pany was sent to Half Way Brook, where a surprise of an English
escort was made. This was on the 20th, and on the 30th, off
went Ragley's regiment in whaleboats to join Rogers, Lyman and
Haviland for a brush in South Bay.

Under the date, August 23, Wednesday, it says: "Mr.
Woodbury is sick with dysentery."

From the pages, many details of the march can be gleaned.
June 15, Colonel Bagley's regiment arrived at Flatbush, and on the
20th were at Schenectady ; the 24th they were sent forward to
Fort Edward; the 25th " we took a long Sabbath day's journey
for our march. I never saw such a Sabbath before," says the
tender footed chaplain. " It was a twenty-mile tramp. The 27th.
they passed the Fort at Stillwater and the 28th, reached Saratoga
Fort where we put up and tarried all night."

This was the first visit of any member of the Woodbury fam-
ly to that fine watering-place.

As far as the writer is personally concerned, on his mother's
side, through the Wendell ancestry, he is descended from Johannes
Wendell who, in 1691, died, leaving a large tract of "Saratoga "
to his heirs, and making his " gude " wife Elizabeth, through
whom he acquired it, his executrix.

But revenons : July i the regiment were at the lake, well tired-
July 4 the army embarked in bateaux, Bagley's regiment on the
right, the regulars in the centre, the Rangers in front.

The chaplain writes: " My Lord Howe was killed and twenty
of our men were missing after the skirmish ; of the enemy, one
hundred and twenty-nine were taken and probably as many killed."
Good work for a green regiment !

Lord Howe was the pride of the army and his death a per-
sonal grief to all. We heard much of him in the family, that is
those of us who lived between 1760 an 1823, for the young

74 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

James who flashed his maiden sword that day, lived for sixty four
years to repeat the story of his campaigns and the last moments
of Howe and Wolfe

Massachusetts erected in Westminister Abbey a monument
to the hero who fell, leading her sons to victory.

The Rev. Dr. Shute, chaplain in Colonel Williams's regiment,
lay at Schenectady when these engagements took place. His
journal quaintly records it :

" Upon Lord Howe being slain, the whole army were halted
and July 7, lay still on that account. But 1800 men not able to
bring him to life — my chest arrived at Schenactady. . . ." So the
good chaplain had something to be thankful for amid the general
mourning for the young lord and the provincial, untitled patriots
who had sealed their devotion with their life blood.

Though I cannot relate any personal incidents, from James's
mouth, of this campaign in the then wilderness, yet among the
various journals some idea of the life on the march and in camp
can be gleaned, and bring nearer to us the vicissitudes of this cam-
paign.

In Dr. Rea's journal of the march home to Albany, he
writes: "June 15, this day arrived at Flatbush. Col. Bagley's
regiment generally in health and high spirits, though some
very much beaten out by their march from Northampton by the
way of Pawtusock to Flatbush, on which march, many companies
had not one fourth allowance of bread nor any rum for four or five
days. Nor was there any to be had on the road."

No wonder they grumbled and had sore feet ! Even the
Doctor did not live in clover during the campaign, for he solilo-
quizes, October 27, 1758 : " I have eat, this summer, one meal of
squash; one meal of turnips, one of potatoes, one of onions and no
more."

When the field officers could fare no better than this, what
chance had the subalterns to vary their hardtack rations.

James Woodbury did not complain, for he got his full of fight-
ing and liked the dose, as he enlisted again, the next year, with

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 75

Colonel Bagley, went to Louisburg, and was sent from there to
Quebec to exercise his provincial skill as a ranger in protecting
Wolfe's regulars from the tactics of the Canadians and Indians in
bush fighting.

The plain truth is, some finger of destiny had been stirring
up the Woodburys for more than a century to get to Quebec with
their arms. Humphrey's son had piloted Kirk into the St. Law-
rence ; another cousin had guided Phipps's expedition ; still an-
other had his smack captured by the French and Indians on the
East Coast. Three or four had tried the Lake George route with-
out success. But James had hit the right course, and though it
cost him a severe wound at the Plains of Abraham, "he got there,
all the same."

When Wolfe and his fleet sailed up the river and made a land-
ing, the Kanucks drove off all their live stock, and foraging be-
came both unprofitable and dangerous. Fresh meat was scarce in
the camp of the regulars. Colonel Knox, in his journal, says that
colt's loin is very good eating and the rest of the animal is not bad
if disguised.

The Canadians were accomplished woodsmen, skilled in the
Indian mode of fighting, grown expert from two generations of ac-
tive contest with New England provincials. The British regulars
had no tactics to parry their skirmishing bush-fighting ways of
cutting them up in detail.

Provincials, trained in the same way as the " Rogers
Rangers," the school that gave Stark, Dearborn, Putnam and
others to the armies of the Revolution, were drafted up from Hali-
fax to protect the camps and raise supplies.

It was galling to the pride of the stalwart regulars that there
was a system of woodsmen tactics too efBcient for their pipe clay
and queues and gaiters. But Wolfe was too good a soldier not
to avail himself of the provincials' aid within scope of his com-
mand, and he soon had them at the front, to the great comfort
of his pickets and the commissary department.

76 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

The tradition in our family ever since I can remember was
not only that James was wounded in the fight on the Plains of
Abraham, but that he lay under the same tree with Wolfe until the
latter was carried off the ground. James's gun and sword are still
treasured in the family.

An obituary notice of James Woodbury says: "In 1759,
after enduring the hardships of a long campaign, at the age of
twenty-one, he was under Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham. After
the war, he returned to Beverley, and later he removed to Mount
Vernon, then a part of Amherst; here he cultivated a valuable
farm till near the close of his life."

November 5, 1761, he married Hannah Traske, the daughter
of Josiah and Abigail Traske. She was a descendant of Ormand
Traske, the reputed brother of Capt. William Traske, one of the
" Old Planters " who had the grant of a thousand acres at Beverley
and was a renowned Indian fighter.

As we have previously seen, James was a land owner in the
town, which his father had conveyed to him " for love and affec-
tion." It is possible he may have removed to Amherst as early as
the date of the grant of 1765. It would appear as though it had
then been determined in the family that he would settle on that
land, and try his hand as a frontiersman.

From the mode in which these Narragansett townships were
allotted to soldiers, a special neighborhood of towns had a town-
ship divided among the soldiers and their descendants, so that the
bonds of union were strong among them and the homes whence
they migrated. "It was a wise policy. Family ties and old friend-
ships were but little disturbed.

Emigration, under these circumstances, did not amount to
alienation.

A record of the fourth division of lots among the proprietors
is preserved in the handwriting of Daniel Campbell, Esquire, in
the proprietor's book of records, and proprietary rights seem to
have dissolved soon after.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 77

James Woodbury must have moved there between 1765 and
1770, as he was at the drawing of the fourth division of lots in
October, 1770.

On the records of the Second Church, North Beverley, are the
baptisms of James's daughters, Hitty, Hannah and Abigail, the
last November 2, 1766. Naturally it follows that the others who
do not appear thereon were born at Amherst, among them my
grandmother, Mary, born August 15, 1769.

The name of James Woodbury, according to the statement of
Town Clerk Lowell of Beverley, does not appear on the town
papers or the assessors' list after 1766. Thus it may be fairly
assumed that he moved to his Mount Vernon estate, either in the
spring of 1767 or the previous year. He would have employed
the interval in clearing up land, getting ready for crops and build-
ing a home.

We can imagine the stout-hearted young couple with their
children riding along the rough and weary way, and when Souhe-
gan. West, was reached, the sad smile of the young wife as she
first faced that long hill. Little did she dream that thence there
would descend a long line of honorable descendants who should
call her blessed ; that among them her name should be a star of
pious memory and family pride.

Slight mention of the acts in which James Woodbury bore
part are noted in the Amherst town records. March 14, 1776,
the great declaration of resistance by arms against the British Par-
liament fleet and armies was signed by the principal inhabitants,
among them James Woodbury and his cousin Peter.

Its text ran : " We, the subscribers, do hereby engage and
promise that we will, to the utmost of our power, at the risk of
our lives and fortunes, with arms, oppose the hostile proceedings
of the British fleet and armies against the United Colonies."

To all of his descendants was left this patent of Democracy,
the nobility of nature, this heritage of resistance to tyranny, and
it is unspeakably precious to us that from both our great-grand-
fathers we have the heirloom of patriotism and defiance to oppres-
sion.

78 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

March 8, 1779, James Woodbury was one of the committee
to provide for the families of non-commissioned ofihcers and pri-
vates from his town ; November 2, one of the committee to settle
the price of produce and articles of trade for the town ; in 1781, a
member of the committee of " Public Safety," the great organizing
and corresponding agent which set the ball in motion and carried
on the combined efforts of the towns to maintain the rebellion.

In 1 78 1, the northwest section of Amherst was organized as
a parish and James Woodbury chosen treasurer. He had been
among those who, in 1778, objected to calling Rev. Mr. Blyden-
burg to their congregation, and in 1779, he and Peter are protes-
tants against settling Dr. Barnard ; in 1780, they are in the last
fray, protesting against his confirmation to that pulpit.

In 1783, in an address to the General Court of New Hamp-
shire, with fifty others he asks that lawsuits be rendered less num-
erous and property be made a lawful tender at appraised rates.

He appeared as a resident taxpayer of Mount Vernon up to
1 810 but not after.

The ardent patriotism of James and Peter is exemplified in
their signing a petition in 1779, ^o ^he New Hampshire council
and legislature, reciting :

IV/iereas, Amherst has neglected to fill her quota, and an
extent is threatened against her, " we your humble petitioners,
are so unwilling to be numbered among those who neglect, delay
or refuse to maintain and support the present war as long as the
United States thinks it necessary, etc., ask to be classed to our-
selves, according to our poll and estate in order to raise our pro-
portion of the men which this town lately hath been sent for."

There are about fifty signers, and selectmen give it more
strength by their petition, asking how they may force the neglect-
ful to put up an equal proportion with the others, for raising rheir
quota.

I find another record of the democratic principles of James
Woodbury: Colonel Thornton, 1784, had petitioned for an ex-
clusive ferry where there formerly was but one, but a large body

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 79

of the people were in opposition to the grant as a public injury,
also alleging that the Colonel never did attend to such matters
and never will, but the Colonel prevailed.

It seems that at some time James Woodbury gave land for
the meeting-house and the graveyard to the town on the condition
that the town should have it as long as the meeting-house occupied
the site.

Lately, the meeting-house had been moved off across the
road ; the parish wished to build a parsonage on the site and a
query arose about the title. It was thought best to get a quit
claim from the descendants, but on finding how numerous they
were, it was given up. Mr. Dodge, who was engaged in the mat-
ter, consoled me as to this valuable reversion by saying : " You
might find yourself heir to a foot or two of that rock-bound land,
and should gold be discovered, that might be of value."

The congregation took the risk of building, and the Wood-
burys have not disturbed the title.

My mother, who saw her husband's grandfather, James
Woodbury, at Francestown, several times before he died, described
him as a tall, graceful man, of easy manner, fluent in talk, having
a fine address. When she married, James was over eighty.

The children of James Woodbury and his wife Hannah were Hitty, or
Kitty, born October 8, 1762, married James Ray; Abigail, in the Beverley
Records, born November 2, 1766, though the Amherst genealogy of James's
children says she was baptized March 13, 1765, but there is evidently an
error. She married Ebenezer Fiske, and from her is descended the late
Governor Straw of New Hampshire.

Hannah, born October 5, 1766, married Joseph Perkins; Mary, Aug-
ust 15, 1769, married Peter Woodbury; Sarah, born May 5, 1771, married
first, Josiah Beard; second, Mr. Andrews ; Anna, born August 5, 1774,
married John Averill; Betsy, born August 11, 1777, married Paul Whipple;
Lucy, October 11, 1779, married John S. Tyler. There was also an
earlier Lucy who died young.

When James Woodbury died, March 5, 1823, he left nme chil-
dren, ninety -grandchildren, ninety-six great-grandchildren, and

80 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

there were living one hundred and seventy-two of his direct de-
scendants.

I have an autograph letter of his, an order by Joseph Grafton
on Captain Richard Derby of Salem to deliver to James Woodbury
one barrel of rum. It is dated August 19, 1764. On the back is his
signature. It was evidently intended for the sea or speculation.
Had James foreseen that he would leave one hundred and seventy-
two descendants, and that the rum would be a quart each, he
might have let it ripen for their use. I had an accomplished math-
ematician calculate the day of the week this order was signed. It
was on Tuesday.

As probably no one after me can find any tradition of him ex-
tant, I will mention one. I was at the Fort William Henry
House some time in the '70's and the stage arrived with my
cousin, daughter of Rev. J. Traske Woodbury of Milford, Mass.,
and her husband, Mr. Parker.

After greeting them, as one better acquainted with the site,
I walked with them to the ruins of the old fort and descanted on
the famous visit of our great-grandfather there. I referred to an
anecdote which I only partially remembered, and she immediately
said that she had heard her father relate it and supplied the hiatus
in my narration.

It appears the mother of James had sent to him by a neigh-
bor lad, also in the army and returning to it from his furlough, a
bag with cheese, doughnuts, and stockings for James and his
cousin. The way was long, appetite sharp, and on reaching camp,
the present had disappeared and nothing vyas said to the Wood-
bury boys about it.

When they reached home at Thanksgiving and sat by the
fire, telling their tales, the mother inquired about the gift, and on
some astonishment being expressed, described its details.

One saying to the other, "We must go make that call," they
went out. When they returned, they laughed and said : " It's all
right, now, we gave that fellow a good thrashing," and that night
they slept the sleep of the just in the Woodbury mansion.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 81

The death of James Woodbury was somewhat noted in local
history, both in respect to his early services in the French wars
and the large number of his descendants. He is buried in the
ancient graveyard in Francestown. His daughter's house, where
he made his home in his last days, is opposite his resting-
place.

Loving hands soothed his ending years and when the lamp
of life went out, self-extinguished, they laid him under the green
sod, and treasured in their breasts the kindly memories of his vir-
tues and sacrifices.

He lived to see his grandson Levi governor of the state ;
and the republic he had helped to found, great, prosperous, glori-
ous !

The testimonies which I have drawn together bear record to
the character and services of this excellent man, as soldier, patriot,
Christian, trusted and honored citizen.

He was both in spirit and fact a patriarch of American liber-
ty. Content with individual independence, he remained on his
patrimonial acres, and raised his children to revere free institu-
tions and the over-ruling Providence which guides all things to its
own hallowed purpose.

CHAPTER IX.

JOSIAH WOODBURY. FIRST.

JOSIAH Woodbury, first, was the son of Deacon Peter Wood-
bury and his second wife, Sarah, daughter of Richard Dodge,
Esquire, to whom the deacon was married July, 1667. Jo-
siah was born in the Second Parish, Beverley, June 15, 1682, and
was married April 29, 1708, to Lydia, daughter of Captain Jo-
seph Herrick of Beverley, a descendant of Roger Conant, and
her father was the son of Henry Herrick of Salem, and great
grandson of Sir William Herrick of Beau Manoir, Leicestershire.
(Herrick Genealogy.)

Captain Herrick commanded a company of mounted Rangers
in the French war. The son of Henry Herrick of Salem, Henry
Herrick of Beverley, had married Lydia Woodbury as early as
1660. They were the parents of Capt. Joseph Herrick.

The Herricks claim a long and distinguished ancestry, trac-
ino- back to the Norse conquerors of England, Erick or Herrick,
and including ambassadors in Queen Elizabeth's reign ; but I re-
frain from details. To me the poet Herrick, who was bachelor
cousin to the first emigrant here, has a most interesting and de-
lio-htful savor. The charm of his wit and fancv clings around his
poems still with the fresh aroma it has held for two and a half
centuries, placing him worthily with Shakespere and Burns as in-
terpreter of the human heart.

It was a good stock : the Herricks were able and distin-
guished in provincial, military and other records ; it is still largely
represented in all parts of the Union.

82

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 83

The vale of Dean Burn is in the parish of Dean Prior, and
there was the living of the poet who wrote most of his Hesper-
ides there, and was buried in the churchyard in 1674. Here,
also, was his servant " Prue," recorded in his poems, interred.
Her burial is entered as Prudence Balden, an " olde mayde."

Herrick was expelled under the Protectorate, but reinstated
under the act of uniformity. A tablet to the memory of the poet
has been placed in the church by Herrick of Beau Manoir, Here-
fordshire, the representative of the family.

In the church records, Josiah was received as a member, Oc-
tober 2, 17(5, when he was thirty-three ; April 22, 1716, his wife
Lydia became a communicant. This was the second church or-
ganized in Beverley. The records do not contain much about
Josiah. He was chosen surveyor, and 17 16 grand juror. There
were several Josiah Woodburys about this time and a little uncer-
tainty arises in their identification.

When his father died, he divided his real estate between
Peter and Josiah very fairly with portions for his daughters. He
gave Peter the house in North Beverley now known as the old
Woodbury place; but the other house where he and his wife lived
was given to Josiah, reserving to the mother the west half for her
life or widowhood, with directions for her support out of the land
given to his sons. This house is at the other end of the old
grant, near the settled part of Beverley.

The house which Josiah received was said by Joseph Wood-
bury of Sutton, who died in 18 14, aged seventy-four, to have
"been the house where Captain John Pousland now lives in the
North Parish." I inquired of Levi Woodbury of North Beverley,
who told me that on this street (Cabot street) were the Pousland
house west of Samuel Dodge's and another Woodbury house.
These were located about three miles from Salem city hall and
about a mile nearer than the house in which Peter Woodbury the
first lived and gave to his son Peter.

In 1734 Josiah was appointed guardian of Isaac, son of Isaac
Woodbury.

84 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

A record handed me by Hon. Mr. Herrick, of Salem, taken
from the baptismals, says : " The births of the children of Josiah
and Lydia Woodbury.

" Josiah, born, February 15, 1708-9 (Query, New or Old Style ?) ;
Lydia, born Sept. 24, 1703 (Not right, probably 17 13 Bev. Rec.) ; Mary
born Mar. 3, 1716 or 17, married Dr. Benjamin Jones, her sister Lydia
marrying Humphrey Bartlett ; Martha, born May 5, 1721, married Richard
Leach of Salem ; Sarah, born March 25, 1730, unmarried at her father's
death."

The son of this union, Josiah, 2d, born February 15, 1708
or 1709 (0. S.), is put in the church records of Beverley as being
born in 17 10. Those who know the difference between the old
style and the new will be able to understand this confusion of
dates. In the old style the year began March 25 and the new
style, adopted half a century later, made it open January i.

In August, 1746, the probate records state that Lydia Wood-
bury was appointed with her son Josiah the administrators of the
estate of Josiah Woodbury, intestate. He was about sixty-four at
his death.

In the partitioning of the estate, the mother and daughter
Lydia received the homestead and various lands ; Josiah, two
shares of the land, and Mary, Martha and Sarah their shares. In
describing what was set off for the mother's dower there were
eight acres south of the house, bounded northwesterly and west-
erly by the highway ; south by land of Lieut. Nathaniel Raymond ;
easterly, land of Benjamin Raymond, Capt. Eben Raymond and
John Herrick ; some in the common and garden, which will serve
to fix the site. He left over a hundred acres of land and rights in
the Long Hill pasture and other common lands of Beverley.

The original papers for the division of his estate among his
children are all in the Probate ofifice at Salem. He was judicious,
enterprising and prosperous. His wife survived him many years.

His son Josiah bought out his sister Lydia's interest and con-
tinued to live in the old house with his mother.

OF THE WOODBUKY FAMILY. 85

Josiah and Lydia Woodbury's daughter, Martha Woodbury, married
Richard Leach. Their son Nathaniel had a daughter Mary who married
Nathaniel Hooper of Marblehead. Their daughter Nancy, born in 1802,
married, 1822, Nicholas Broughton ; their daughter, Ellen Ingersoll Brough-
ton, married, 1844, Henry Edward Waite of West Newton. (From
Broughton Pedigree.)

Some thought arises in this serial narrative of ancestors which
in a measure connects it with the history of the European settle-
ment and its final development. It has appeared that the early
settlers and their children were a strong, clear-headed race who
developed qualities to meet the exigencies of their situation while
they also retained their recollection and experience of life in
Great Britain, under very different auspices.

Josiah was a grandson of the first pioneer. The traditions of
English social life were mainly dim memories, and the standard of
this generation was that created here by culture, prosperity and
manners, not as rich and elegant as the centuries of growth in
England, but far richer in the growth and development of self-re-
liance, self-government, freedom from the accumulated dross and
fossilized habitues of the Old World and its feudal organizations.

Men of this generation occupy an important position in the
law of progress.

The feudal institutions of law and society had given way to
those born of our land tenures in fee simple, the absence of he-
reditary institutions, the necessary reversion to old Gothic tenures
and community expressed in the township.

The entire dissent of church here from the established church
and the influences of England, the Indian and French wars, called
forth the thought and manhood of the colonists and the invention
and development of tactics suited to the emergencies of the settle-
ments and the intervening wildernesses.

The father-in-law of Josiah Woodbury, Joseph Herrick, and
his brother-in-law, Capt. Henry Herrick, were French and
Indian fighters of renown, and his cousin Peter Woodbury had
fallen with the flower of Essex at Bloody Brook. The people were

86 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

busy looking after their own relations to French and Indians in
America rather than to European wars.

The transitional state was in its advance and popular sov-
ereignty, or, as St. Thomas Aquinas expressed it centuries before,
the divine right of the people was growing in their hearts, and
coming to the front to contest the divine right of kings, and the
subjection to foreign parliaments. The decrease of emigration
helped to give force to the local influence of affairs on the mind.
Loyalty had not gone utterly extinct, but the faith that it was a
duty owed by rulers to the people had taken a strong hold on their
minds. It was a brooding time for the great future which destiny
was shaping in the new ideas. Wealth had not yet become a
prominent feature. There was a broad equality in the condition
of the people almost Arcadian. The underlying dogma of Con-
gregationalism, that the people made the church, and made and
unmade the priest, gave a high sense of individual sovereignty
over social questions which despite the efforts to form a priestly
caste, broke constantly through the barriers, and reasserted its
truth ; plain education was well spread in every settled township.

Some censors have thought there was falling off of the latter
as compared with earlier stages, but it was not retrogression but
change, advance, that was controlling all but the few closely bound
by official ties to British influence. A broader, holier, self-as-
sertive growth, mixed with disregard of foreign social standards
and taste, as contrasted with the practical necessities of American
life, and the purity of its social system.

The emergency was on them. The armor their ancestors
wore to resist the Indian arrows and spears was not effective
against bullets, and the Indians had passed upward in military
weapons and now handled the musket and bayonet. The contest
was on more equal grounds. The French, too, were stronger than
ever. To unity in their government, we opposed the disjointed
forces of separate provinces, rarely acting in concord either for
peace or war.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 87

The new departure involved a necessary element of its exis-
tence, the falling away from the imitative condition of Colonial
childhood in order to give scope for the self-developing progress
of an adult independent manhood. The rapid growth of this was
through wars for existence, then for race dominance, then for the
final, glorious self-assertion of independence and the theories of
liberty, equality, fraternity !

I have tried to present to you through these types the devel-
opment of the young plant of national character then forming,
soon to become an irresistible power on this continent.

The philosophic mind recognizes the grandeur of this intel-
lectual state of the age which was sternly bartering its English
prepossessions in exchange for the grandest, most widespread self-
assertion of free humanity that history has on its illuminated
pages !

This, I say, was the brooding and progress of the plain, home-
spun masses of the people, and not the product of enthusiastic
leaders or of kindling eloquence. They were thinking deeper and
wiser than the rich, the learned or the ambitious leaders !

CHAPTER X.

ROGER CONANT.

IN Massachusetts, successful settlements of English had been
made before the Puritan migration to the American shores,
and the descendants of these pioneers are, today, among the
active and enterprising citizens of New England.

Without dilating on those around the shores of Boston har-
bor my subject connects itself with the settlement made at Cape
Ann, in 1623, by the Dorchester company.

The object was planting, winter fishing and the Indian trade.
Here came John Woodbury in 1624 and others, some not con-
nected with the company. In 1626, having met with losses by
sea and in fishing, the Dorchester company reorganized its settle-
ment and made Roger Conant the governor of the enterprise,
he or his family in Devonshire being well known to the Dorchester
men.

Conant had come to Plymouth in 1623, with his family, and
had moved from there to Nantasket. Like the other Old Plant-
ers, Woodbury, Balch and Palfrey, whom he found at Cape Ann,
he had come to stay.

On those four rested the success or failure of the undertak-
ing. The authorities whence our knowledge is mainly drawn are
Hubbard's " History of Massachusetts "; Thornton's " Landing at
Cape Ann "; Mr. Phippen's " Memoirs of Roger Conant"; "The
Conant Family"; the "Old Planters" in the Essex Historical
Collection ; " John Woodbury, an old Planter "; Massachusetts
State Records ; Bradford's " Plymouth "; and Smith's " New
England."

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 89

Mr. Conant became satisfied that Nahumkeag, now Salem,
was a better place for an agricultural colony, and the settlement
was removed there in 1626-27, experience proving the wisdom of
the change. John Woodbury was sent back to Dorchester to ar-
range for the patent, the trading and other supplies which had
been promised by their associates there.

In June, 1628, Woodbury returned bringing with him his son
Humphrey to Nahumkeag and a " favorable answer to those who
sent him." A patent had been applied for to the Great Council of
Plymouth, and was expected without delay. Affairs had gone
very well during his absence, and his news was agreeable to the
small but resolute band who was planting its homesteads in defi-
ance of French and Indian enemies.

Another notable planter, Captain William Traske, joined
them at Nahumkeag. It was a well planted little colony.
Cleared land, the old fields of the Indians extinguished by the
pestilence of 161 5 to 1619, was of ample extent. Lumber was
convenient to the rivers, both for shipment and for domestic use.
There were shad, herring and bass in their seasons, and lobsters,
sea fish and mackerel were plentiful off the coast.

Corn and cattle throve. The great cod fishery was east of
Cape Ann, but for local purposes the supply about Nahumkeag
was plentiful.

They defended the neighbor Indians against the Tarrantees
and they also carried on an Indian trade for furs, the extent of
which is unknown. A large fishing fleet, well arm.ed, came every
spring from England, manned by a couple of thousand hardy fish-
ermen who spread along the coast from the Isle of Shoals to
Monhegan, forming a buttress of protection for six or more
months, and also being the means of communication and supply
with England. Nahumkeag was more convenient to the fleet than
was Plymouth, and its people were more cosmopolitan in spirit.
It was better for agriculture, also, and planting was profitable.

The favorable reports of their progress had inspired the
Rev. Dr. White, one of their associates, with the broad idea of

90 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

providing a home for the oppressed Puritans of England. He
expanded this association and the grantees of the patent included
five or six more names. The headquarters of the old organization
were removed to London, some of the Dorchester members enter-
ing the new.

In September, 1628, John Endicott arrived with some men at
Nahumkeag with the evidence of the transfer and directions from
the company, appointing him governor of its affairs.

Conant at once turned over the personal property of the out-
fitters to Endicott, but the claim to the lands was another matter.
The Old Planters and others who had gathered and planted there
declined to be frozen out of their lands and improvements, and de-
manded their rights as joint associates in the patent for which
thev had applied, and to whose use it had been issued.

They were resolute in their position. Mr. Conant arbitrated
between the contestants with excellent discretion, an agreement
was reached, sent out to England, and subsequently confirmed by
the London associates. From remnants of the correspondence
still extant, it seems to be as follows :

" The privileges and powers in the company of a fifty-pound
shareholder were promised them, the right to have two hundred
acres of land and the exclusive privilege of planting tobacco were
accorded such of the Old Planters as would remain with them and
in honor of the peace the name of the place was changed for
Salem," which it still retains.

The dignified recognition of the priority of the Old Planters
will be appreciated by referring to the statements of Hubbard the
historian. " The subscribers to the common stock of the com-
pany at that time were mainly twenty-five pound shares, and only
a few, Young, Crane, Wade, William Hubbard, were subscribers
of fifty pounds and only three others subscribed more than
fifty pounds." The whole stock subscribed, he states, to be a
little over seventeen hundred pounds. These poor beginnings
were the foundation of this great colony. The Old Planters,
Woodbury, Conant, Balch, Palfrey, were recognized as in the front

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 91

rank and assimilated with the undertakers of the colony, and on
their old foundation was the Bay Company raised into an Amer-
ican institution. The lists were afterwards considerably in-
creased.

The Bay Company was chartered in 1629, and in 1630 re-
moved its organization to Massachusetts. Conant, Balch, Wood-
bury, Traske, Palfrey, of the Old Planters, and others of their
considerable neighbors were promptly voted in as Freemen of the
corporation and took position in the government of the country.

The P'reemen who came with Winthrop were few compared
with the body of male adults, and membership was a caste which
continually became more exclusive while the charter remained in
force.

Massachusetts never absolutely threw off this caste influence
on the right of voting until the act of 1892 repealed the last re-
strictions.

Whatever honor may be claimed for those in England who
got up the Dorchester and Bay corporations can not diminish that
of the men who actually faced the dangers and hardships of de-
veloping a colony, and, surmounting all obstacles, coped triumph-
antly with adverse man and nature. The Bay Company, after its
transfer to this side, in many ways acknowledged its indebtedness
to the Old Planters for the settlement of the country.

Modern man, with a theological ambition has assumed both
for Endicott and Conant the title of governor, preceding the re-
moval of the Bay organization in 1630. It was the usual title
accorded to one who had charge of a settlement and had no refer-
ence to a charter. It was not only given to the head of the
Dorchester settlement here, but was held by the head of the
Plymouth party, before it was chartered. The Dutch West India
Company has a directem in New York who is always, however,
written of in English as governor. In England now " governor "
is used for the chief of a hospital, a trading post, an associa-
tion or a company, as we use " president." Conant and Endicott
were each governors at Nahumkeag before even there was a Bay

92 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

charter, before John Winthrop was interested in the venture,
before he ever saw America.

Nor can Massachusetts suffer in fame because she has grown
from the small beginnings of Plymouth, Boston Bay, Cape Ann,
and Nahumkeag. Conant's share in these beginnings are wor-
thy of respect, and it is his right. Conant and the other Old
Planters were not lost in the large emigration which followed the
advent of the Bay Company to these shores, with its broad privi-
leges and large support at home. The Old Planters, being mainly
West of England men, were early overshadowed by the numbers,
influence and clannishness of the East of England and Midland-
men in the directorship of the company, but they exercised
strong influence in their neighborhood and participated in the
government.

In 1634, Conant was elected by the Salem F"reemen their
deputy to the General Court. He had been one of the " select-
men " of Salem from 1634, and continued to 1640.

In 1635, a grant of one thousand acres of land was made to
Roger Conant, John Woodbury, John Balch, Peter Palfrey and
William Traske on the Beverley side, which they improved.

Conant claimed he built the first house in Salem and his son
was the first white child born in that town. He was one of the
surveyors. In 1637, ^^ was joined by the General Court as one
of the associate justices to hold court sessions in Salem, and con-
tinued for three years.

Conant and his neighbors petitioned to have the name of the
town changed from Beverley to Budleigh. It was refused ; but in
1671, the General Court granted him another two hundred acres of
land for his early services, " being a very ancient planter." In
1674, his land was laid out, and approved by the General Court
in 1679. It was a complimentary recognition of his deserts.

Conant had welcomed Endicott, and, at a later date, Win-
throp and the corporation, had smoothed out their difficulties,
shared, with the other Old Planters, the labors and success of the
enterprise. The hypercriticism which seeks to obscure the first

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 93

settlers and the governor and rob them of the fame as pioneers
and planters, comes not from the mouths of Winthrop and his
contemporaries, but tends to dishonor their memories.

Hawthorne gives an artistic description of this stalwart old
pioneer in his account of Main street, which is copied into " The
Conant Family," page 126.

Roger Conant's wife was Sarah Horton, whom he married
November ii, i6i8,at the Parish of St. Ann, Blackfriars, London.

The children born in London were Sarah (died 1626), Caleb ; his son Lot
was born either at Nantasket or Cape Ann ; Roger, Sarah, Joshua, Mary ;
Elizabeth and Exercise were born at Salem. Mary, born between 1630 and
1633, died in 1706, She married John Balch, who died January, 1662. She
afterwards married William Dodge. Their daughter Mary, born May 26,
1666, married Joseph Herrick ; their daughter Lydia, married Josiah
Woodbury, 1708, son of Peter Woodbury.

Roger Conant died November 19, 1679, aged eighty-eight.
His will is in the Essex County Probate Records. A full account
of him is published in a book called "The History and Genealogy
of the Conant Family," which includes a sketch of .his English
family connection, not the subject of this article. He was born in
East Budleigh, Devonshire; his parents were Richard and Agnes
Conant. He was baptized in " All Saints Church " April 9, 1592,
East Budleigh, England.

CHAPTER XI.

JOSIAH WOODBURY, SECOND.

JOSIAH WOODBURY, second, son of Josiah, first, was born
February 15, 1708 (old style), February 15, 1709 (new style)
He married, 1731, Hannah Perkins of Ipswich, Mass., who
bore him thirteen children, five of whom died early.

In Bullinger's " Sermons on the Apocalypse," to which ref-
erence has been made before, Josiah has the entries of the follow-
ing, evidently as a sort of family record :

Sarah, born February 15, 1736, died March 23, 1737.

Peter, born March 28, 1738.

Lydia, born May i, 1740.

Hannah, born May 4, 1743.

Josiah, born May 2, 1748.

Martha, born August 20, 1750.

Thankful, born October 20, I75S-

Josiah's outpourings on the margin sound like the age of
faith, now when barrels of sermons can be had cheaper than mack-
erel. When he discovered the book we see a respectful reverence
for the eighty years it had lain peacefully in the house since his
grandfatjjer died, the house in which he was born, and possibly
where his father first saw the light. Indeed, the grandfather of
Peter, second, may have been born there in 1640. Josiah does
not pass any opinion as to how early his grandfather may have
acquired the book. Since Josiah found it, it has lain tenderly
cared for in the possession of the family one hundred and twenty
years, and this brown old volume, timeworn, is one of the house-
hold Lares, a rune of blessing, having a mysterious influence on
those who care for it, and still more potent for luck to those who
read its black letter pages and meditate why the god " wish "should
condescendingly associate his gifts with these students of the

94

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 95

apocalypse and its secret Gnosis. Had Josiah obtained it earlier
in life, who knows how much it would have blessed him ?

Josiah writes, on the margin : "Peter Woodbury, 1704, my
grandfather, had two sons, Peter and Josiah Woodbury. My grand-
father had seven sisters. Josiah was born February 15, 1707, two
years after the death of my grandfather, Peter Woodbury."

In 1746 he was made, with his mother, joint administrator of
his father's estate, of which he had two shares, as eldest son, in-
deed, he was the only son. The probate records show the house
went to his mother and Lydia, and is traced through that daughter.
The proceedings of court to divide his father's estate are quite
interesting. His share was two of six lots into which the land was
apportioned. It would appear that the father had been liberal to
the daughters on their marriages, which was taken into account
in the division of the lands. This would swell the estate from
one point of view.

In Mr. Hale's list of houses in Beverley the house which
Josiah occupied in 1723 is set down as occupied by Josiah Wood-
bury, Jr., in 1751. From the memoranda of Mr. Woodbury of
Sutton it afterwards passed into the hands of Captain Pouslin of
Beverley, and within a few years was burnt up. The situation on
Base River side was on Goose Lane and near the south end of the
grant to the Old Planters. It is a moot point which was the
oldest residence of the first deacon, Peter Woodbury. Josiah does
not appear to have deeded the house away. There was probably
some probate proceedings.

In 1778, Jonathan Dodge, owner of all but the dower right
of Lydia Woodbury, conveys two thirds of the house and half of
the reversion of dower to William Page, who, in 1786, conveys it
in full to Captain John Powsland, and thus the house went out
of the family.

In 1780, Peter Woodbury of Amherst, deeds for one hundred
and fifty pounds, one half of the reverted dower interest of Lydia
Brown in the house of William Page. Thus, if Lydia Woodbury,
dowager, became Lydia Brown, as is probable, she died between
1778 and 1780, aged eighty-seven or eighty-eight.

96 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

There are some indications that Josiah had business with the
fisheries and West India commerce as well as his estate. He ap-
pears to have been a man of some humor and sharpness. An ad-
vertisement attributed to him, concerning a runaway servant, is
racy and its pungency delicious.

The records of Beverley show that Josiah Woodbury's inten-
tion of marriage with Hannah Perkins was published May 30, 1731.
She died January 12, 1761, aged forty-six, thus making her birth
in 1715.

Josiah was gathered to his fathers, December 12, 1773, aged
sixty-four. I do not find that he left any will. How much or
where his property I have not been able to ascertain. His
mother survived him, and his son Peter had moved to Amherst
before his death.

One Hannah Woodbury married John Woodbury of Salem,
N. H. From his age it would seem as if she were daughter of
Josiah second and sister of Peter. John died about 1828, aged
eighty-three, and a son of his, John, died in 1847, aged sixty -seven,
therefore, born about 1780.

The nearness of our Amherst branch with that of Salem,
N. H., is indicated. I learn that Hannah Woodbury married John
Batchelder, and in 1775 they had a daughter Hannah. Query :
Which of the Hannahs was the daughter of Josiah second, born in

1743?

PERKINS.

John Terkins of Newent, Gloucestershire, born 1590; died 1654. He

married Judith . They came over in the ship " Lyon," December

I, 1630.

Issue

Elizabeth, died 1685. Jacob, born 1624; died 1699.

Esther Burnham, died 1749. Matthew, born, Ipswich, July 23,

I 1665; died April 15, 1738.

Martha Rogers, died September 30, Matthew Perkins, Jr., born April 14,
1720, 1687; died May 28, 1737.

I
Hannah Perkins.

Josiah Woodbury. Issue: Thirteen children.

CHAPTER XII.

PETER WOODBURY OF ANTRIM, N. H.

PETER, son of Josiah Woodbury, was born in Beverley, Mass.,
March 28, 1738. He married Elizabeth Dodge, widow of
James Ray, about the year 1760. She had one child,
James Ray, born May i, 1758. In the history of Antrim she is
spoken of as having been "a woman of intelligence and energy."
She died April 19, 1812, aged sixty-nine. Peter removed to New
Hampshire in 1771 or earlier, settling in that part known as Mount
Vernon, and there his house remains today, over the hill towards
Francistown. He was selectman of Amherst for several years, and
in 1776, representative to the General Court. He joined in the
convention which framed the first constitution for New Hampshire.
He held several positions in public affairs prior to the place
of his residence, Mount Vernon, being set off, 1803, as a separate
town.

In 1779, he was grand juror for the county. Occasional men-
tion of his name appears during the years after the town was set
off, and he was taxed as a resident the years 18 14 and 181 5 and
not after.

When the War of the Revolution became imminent, a decla-
ration of association was sent through the province of New Hamp-
shire to obtain signers, and also a list of those who refused to
sign. It was promulgated April 10, 1776. " We the sub-
scribers do hereby solemnly engage and promise that we will to
the utmost of our power, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, with
arms oppose the hostile proceedings of the British fleet and armies
against the United American Colonies."

In Amherst, Peter was the fifth signer, and it is worthy of
comment that only four persons refused to sign.

97

98 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Their names are found in the provincial records. Often
have I heard my grandfather tell how he, as a boy of nine or ten,
was with the crowd who had the most distinguished of these non-
patriots at the horse block with a halter about his neck, though
they did no injury. In the whole province, less than eight
hundred refused to sign, and over eight thousand subscribed to
the declaration.

Capt. Ezekiel Webster, father of the great Daniel, who was
one of the signers of a similar declaration in the town of Salisbury,
N. H., spoke of it thus in the last year of his life :

" In looking to this record, connected with the men of my
birthplace, I confess I am gratified to find who were the signers
and who were the dissentients. Among the former was he from
whom I am descended with all his brothers and his whole kith and
kin. This is sufficient emblazonry for my arms, enough of herald-
ry for me."

It cannot escape an observing mind that in this brief record
of Peter Woodbury's actions, there is proof of a strong, energetic
character, deep feeling of patriotism, touched with the divine flame
of that love of liberty which has led this country to that marvel-
ous development of self-government and prosperity distinguishing
the age. He was thoroughly in line with the first and best in
the progressive spirit and earnest love of independence which
animated and gave soul to the conflict for liberty.

The Woodbury blood, whether shown in the Hall or the
Langdon families around Portsmouth, or in the upright inhab-
itants of Hillsboro county, or in the branch at Salem, N. H., bred
kindly under the influence of that soil and climate of the Granite
State, races who made their fame by their democratic spirit and
their ability to maintain the progress of such institutions.

In 1776, Peter Woodbury was elected to the legislature of
New Hampshire, the year that the constitution of the state de-
clared the sovereignty of the people of New Hampshire. He
took his seat in the December term.

The death of Peter's mother in 1761 made him one of the

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 99

heirs of the estate. Part of his title was complete on his father's
death and his grandmother's death vested the residue. Peter con-
veys half of the dower^reversion in the house of his father Josiah
to William Page. This finishes his disposal with the same con-
veyance to John Dodge in 1778 and cuts him clear from the house
where his ancestors for three or four generations had dwelt.

In 1 780 certain grantees, describing themselves as grandchil-
dren of Josiah Woodbury, convey all their interest in their grand-
father's estate in Beverley to Josiah of Salem and Peter Wood-
bury of Amherst. The deed is recorded in 1784. Peter's grant
is of even date with this other deed, March 8 and 9.

These grandchildren of Josiah are married : Barnabas and Lydia
Dodge of Gloucester ; Benjamin Hale in right of his children, John and
Benjamin ; Andrew and Mary Cressy of Lyndeboro, N. H. ; Samuel and
Thankful Taylor, Ebenezer and Hannah Massen. I put them here to help
some genealogist of all the Woodburys.

I have incorporated in previous chapters much of the patri-
otic service of Peter. He was during the year 1776 one of the
committee of public safety, chosen annually during the war, who
carried on the correspondence of the patriot "rebels" against
King George, and performed executive functions in the recess of
the legislature for the war of independence. Though the "His-
tory of Amherst " does not give him as one of the Revolutionary
soldiers, his name is on the muster roll of Captain Taylor's com-
pany from Amherst, which marched to join the Continental army
at Winter Hill, now Somerville, Mass. This would settle he bore
arms in the cause of revolution even before he gave the pledge re-
ferred to. A soldier as well as a patriot.

I have found in the Revolutionary rolls of New Hampshire
the names of twenty-five distinct Woodburys who did service for
their country. I will briefly name some :

Capt. Elisha Woodbury of New Salem raised a company
and was in General Stark's regiment at Bunker Hill.

Luke Woodbury of New Salem began as corporal in Captain
Woodbury's company at Bunker Hill. He enlisted April 23,

100 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

1775, was made ensign November, 1776; lieutenant in Colonel
Reed's regiment September, 1777, with which he was at Still-
water.

It is supposed that the Hon. Levi Woodbury, in a speech on
Revolutionary pensions, referred to him when he said one of the
patriots of the contest had left the dead unburied to rush to the
field. He was much esteemed by Mount Vernon people, and
Mark Woodbury named his son (Judge) Luke Woodbury, after
him.

The names of Peter's sons, Levi and Jesse, have also been
transmitted in the family, testifying the appreciation of their rel-
atives. Jesse Woodbury of Ware also named one of his two sons
Luke.

When chairman of the committee on the relief of the surviv-
ing officers of the Revolution, in 1828, Governor Levi Woodbury
of New Hampshire made a speech in the Senate of the United
States, on reporting the bill, saying :

" History and tradition must convince all that through defeat
as well as victory, they clung to our fortunes to the uttermost
moment of the struggle. They were actuated by spirit and
intelligence, the surest guarantee of such fidelity. Most of them
had investigated and well understood the principles in dispute ;
to defend them had flown to the field of battle on the first alarm
of war with all the ardor of a Scottish gathering at the summons
of the fiery cross. It is not poetry that one of my own relatives,
an ofificer, long since dead, when the alarm was given at Lexing-
ton, left for the tented field, the corpse of his father unburied."

" One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eyes the gathering tear, and hastened to devote his
own life to the salvation of his country."

The zeal of the two cousins, James and Peter Woodbury, was
conspicuous in their signing the petition to the legislature in 1779,
deprecating the negligence of Amherst in filling her quota of
troops, and with some fifty others write " We, your humble peti-
tioners, are so unwilling to be numbered among those who neglect

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 101

or delay, or refuse to maintain and support the present war, so
long as the United States think it necessary, etc., ask to be
classed to ourselves, according to our polls and estate, in order to
raise our proportion of the men which this town lately hath been
sent for, etc." The petition acted as a salutary stimulant on the
inert.

In 1784, both Peter and James objected to granting a monop-
oly of ferry service, alleging that it would be a public injury. In
December, 17S1, he was one of the convention to consider the
amendment of the constitution of the state. He died October 1 1,
1817.

Peter's sons were Levi, Jesse, Peter, Mark. His daughters were
Betsy, born February 9, 1770, married Peter Jones of Amherst; Hannah,
born February 14, 1772, died March 17, 1772.

Levi Woodbury was born January 20, 1761, in Beverley.
When his father removed to Amherst he seems to have taken his
family with him, and the young Levi grew up on the mountain
side. The Revolutionary records of New Hampshire show that he
enlisted July 12, 1779, ^^'^ the expedition to Rhode Island, and
was discharged on January 10, 1780. On the rolls his age is given
as twenty-six, when in fact he was not nineteen. The reason is
obvious : for claiming to be of an independent age. His brother
Jesse, younger than he, enlisted when about sixteen. These were
not the only Woodburys whose patriotic zeal led them at an
early age to the defense of their country. James was a minor;
and Peter enlisted at thirteen. Also Asa Clapp, who was six-
teen.

On Levi's return from the army he went into the study of
navigation with all the ardor of young ambition. I have before
me two log books, long preserved in the family, one of which he
wrote as a school log, covering an imaginary voyage. The method
and writing indicate that he began with a good education as a
foundation. He must have returned to Beverley to follow the
sea as a profession.

102 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

In 1780, he went from Newburyport to St. Eustatia in the
West Indies, in the ship "Montgomery," Nicholas Jonson, com-
mander. In January, 1781, the 26th, he was master of the ship
" Nancy " from Cape Ann to Guadeloupe. He was then only
twenty. He appears to have been prize master of the ship
" Amherst." The names which he gives can be traced among the
privateers and prizes of that time.

There is great difficulty in following the American Revolu-
tionary privateers by any public records. Indeed, what with prize
courts in the states and the confederation county, the papers have
disappeared save a few in the Supreme Court files of Massachu-
setts.

"Journal of the vo3'age in the Ship Nonesuch Chief Mate,
Levi Woodbury. First entry, January 4, 1781 " — thus he starts
out to keep his journal.

The " Montgomery " was the name of a privateer of some
note at one time. The privateer " Essex," Captain John Cathcart
of Salem, one hundred and ten men, twenty guns, was very success-
ful for a season, capturing four valuable prizes ; arrived in Salem,
August 20, 1780. (Felt's Salem, page 508.) "January 1781,
Last Friday night arrived here from a cruise, the privateer Essex,
Capt. Cathcart, having captured three valuable prizes, homeward
bound. Taken on the coast of Ireland." (Salem Gazette.)

"Since our last, arrived at Beverley a ship from Jamaica with
a valuable cargo of rum, sugar, coffee, cocoa, captured by the Es-
sex, Captain Cathcart. The above prize has been taken above
three months and not arrived before now, owing to the winds being
unfavorable ,and her crew sickly ; sixteen men having died on
boavd. Their provisions were almost expended while at sea, but
they very fortunately happened to fall in with the privateer brig
Montgomery, Capt. Carmo (.'*) of this port, who afforded them a
supply, or, it is thought felie whole crew would have inevitably
perished on board, as they were in a manner, all sick."

Levi Woodbury sailed in the " Essex " on her last cruise,
April, 1 78 1. Pattee's " History of Braintree " gives the following

OF THE ^YOODBURY FAMILY, 103

item, page 425 : " They sailed for the coast of England and Ireland
in the hopes of securing or capturing rich prizes. After having
been fortunate in taking one valuable prize, they soon were unfor-
tunate enough in having their high hopes blasted by being taken
by the British ship Queen Charlotte, of thirty guns, on the east
coast of Ireland, June 4. They were put in irons and transported
to Portsmouth, Eng., where they went through the hardships of
prison life until released in 1782."

Captain Cathcart soon escaped to France and returned to
America, where he had another command. He was evidently a
gallant, successful young fellow, only twenty-six, when he took
command of the " Essex " in 1780. In Russel's dairy of his mill
prison confinement, he notes :

" Levi Woodbury of the Essex was committed July 24, 1781,
died of smallpox, Aug. 29, 1781, after a brief but active service in
the cause of American independence, a young life was laid on the
altars of patriotism and liberty." My father was named after this
uncle, and I take my middle name in succession.

There is family interest in the brief career of this young
soldier and sailor of the Revolution, outreaching the renown and
even the promise of distinction. He was a human sacrifice on the
altar of his country, not spared, like Isaac, to be the founder of a
race.

I have made much research into that last voyage of the
" Essex." All the information I have gleaned of young Levi has
been through much research and the kindness of Mr. Robert S.
Rantoul, formerly mayor of Salem, a friend, and my cousin, Mrs.
Trumbull, daughter of Mark Woodbury of Antrim, who gave to
me the log books.

The strategy of national defense made it desirable the Brit-
ish should feel on their own shore the discomforts they were
creating on ours. The gallant " Essex " had made one success-
ful cruise on the coasts of England, and she sailed again for those
seas and steered boldly up the Irish channel, but by the fortune
of war being brought to bay by a thirty-gun frigate, found her

104 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

twenty guns overmatched, and had to surrender. Thus fortune
dealt the youthful Levi a captive's prison instead of victory, and
repaid hii energetic efforts for a quarter deck with a nameless
grave in a prison yard.

Boyle O'Reilly told me that when he and other Irish patriots
were in that prison they observed the bones of many of the pris-
oners of war, buried there in the Revolution, had become ex-
posed to the air, and they applied for permission to the governor
of the prison to re-inter them. It was granted. They carefully
collected and placed them under the sod. I told the generous
Celt why his narrative personally interested me, and loved him
better than ever for his tender sympathy.

The situation of a prisoner of war, in the American Revolu-
tion, in the hands of Great Britain, was different from what are
now the usages. First, a charge of treason hung over him ; next,
the allowance of food was scant and inferior and nothing in the
way of clothing.

These conditions were held over the prisoners by emissaries
to induce them to enlist under the British flag, threatening them
the failure of the rebellion of the colonies was imminent, when
they would surely be hung for treason. The unfortunates lived
under perpetual straits and threats.

Even the philanthropist Howard bore testimony to the insuf-
ficient rations, beds and sanitary conditions under which the
American prisoners were held. The continental agents of the re-
public made efforts to supply these prisoners with a little money
to mitigate the hardships they endured, but not always were they
successful.

This was particularly applicable to those confined in the pris-
ons about Dartmouth and Plymouth. For them, cartels were
specially rare and difficult and paroles denied to officers, and the
difficulties of communication with America almost insurmountable.

Probably not one letter in a half dozen reached its destina-
tion. From many journals kept by prisoners we learn the heart
grew sick, the mind depressed, the health shattered, and death
was a relief from misery.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. lOS

Thus did England torture the American prisoners of war, but
she could not quench the fires of patriotism that glowed in their
breasts, and though death closed the sufferings of many, their
martyr blood cemented the great Republic in whose cradle it was
shed, and cries from the ground for eternal vengeance.

Mrs. Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband, Hon, John
Adams, December 9, 1781, says: "I have been applied to by
the parents of several Braintree youth to write you in their behalf
requesting your aid and assistance if it is in your power to afford
it. Capt. Cathcart, in the privateer Essex, from Salem, went out
on a cruise, last April in the channel of England and was on the
loth June so unfortunate as to be taken and carried into Ireland.
The officers were confined there but the sailors were sent pris-
oners to Plymouth jail, twelve of whom were from this town, a
list of whom I enclose. The friends of these people have received
intelligence, by way of an officer who belonged to the protector
and who escaped from the jail, that in August last they were all
alive, several of them very destitute of clothing having taken but
a few with them and those for the summer, particularly Ned Savil
and Job Field. Their request is that you would render them some
assistance ; if not in procuring an exchange, that you would get
them supplied with necessary clothing. I have told them you
would do all in your power but what that would be, I cannot
say."

Now what Mr. Adams did is best inferred from a letter to his
wife, dated, "The Hague, 17th Sept., 1782 : I have transmitted
money to the young men whom you mentioned to me, and have
expected every day to hear of their sailing in a cartel for America.
They have been better treated since a change of ministers."

In a later letter to her husband, Mrs. Adams states five of
these called on her "to pay back the money which you had sup-
plied them. I would not receive a farthing unless I had your ex-
press direction over your hand writing to prove that what you had
done was from your private purse."

106 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Mark, son of Peter Woodbury and Elizabeth Dodge Ray, was
born at Amherst July i, 1775, in New Hampshire. He married
Alice, daughter of Deacon J. Boyd. He was moderator of town
meetings for many years before 1812, and representative in 1812
and again in 182 1. He died March 17, 1828.

His son Luke was a lawyer, thirteen years moderator of town
meetings, representative ; thirteen years judge of probate, and,
185 1, a candidate of the majority party, Democratic, for governor
of New Hampshire.

Mark's other sons were Mark, Levi, John ; his daughters,
Sabina (Mrs. Mussey), Mary, Mrs. Moore ; Nancy, Betsey, Mrs.
Dodge ; Mrs. Hill, and Fanny, who died unmarried. It is remark-
able that while Peter's children were all boys but one, those of his
cousin James, who settled also in Amherst, were all girls.

Peter's son Jesse was born in Beverley, Mass., October 22,
1762 (Query, '63 ?). He removed with his parents to Amherst,
served in the Revolutionary War, and was of an adventurous dis-
position, preferring enterprise to the torpid life of Hillsboro
county, consequently we of succeeding generations did not hear
much of Jesse's youthful military life, but the tragic end of Levi's
awoke all our sympathy.

Jesse married Abigail Boutelle of Lyndeboro, N. H., in 1784.
They had two sons and five daughters ; Jesse died in 1802. His
son, born in October, 17S7, the 13th, inherited the adventurous
spirit of his father, for the young Jesse wandered off into the ad-
vanced guard of pioneers, obtaining prior to 1820 an impresario
grant from the Spanish power in Mexico of the southwest part of
Texas, known on the early maps as the "Woodbury and Burnett
grants." He died about the beginning of the Texan war for
independence.

Richard Dodge was the son of John Dodge of Middle Cin-
nock Parish, Somerset, who died in 1635, leaving estate, part of
which belonged to Richard.

This Avas the same neighborhood in which William Wood-
bury lived and married, viz., South Petherton. Richard came with

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 107

his brother WilUam, and a nephew, William of Coker, followed.
From these have come a progression of stalwart citizens. Richard
died in 1671. He came over early. His daughter Sarah married
Deacon Peter Woodbury, first.

THE PEDIGREE OF ELIZABETH DODGE.
(Furnished by the Hon. John I. Baker of Beverley.)

1 . Richard Dodge of Beverley.

2. Edward Dodge married Mary Haskell.

3. Mark Dodge married Elizabeth Woodbury.

4. Elizabeth married James Ray, first husband; Peter Woodbury, second.

Thus she has a cross of the Woodbury blood. She was only
seventeen when she married Peter Woodbury, yet she was a widow
and had one child. As she was sixty-nine when she died, she
must have been born in 1743, and, consequently, was about fifteen
when she married James Ray.

Note. — William Woodbury's daughter married a Haskell and prob-
ably this is a cross back into that John branch.

CHAPTER XIIL

PETER WOODBURY OF FRANCESTOWN.

PETER WOODBURY was born in Beverley and brought when
a mere child with his parents to Amherst, N. H., where they
settled in that part of the town since set off in a township
by the name of Mount Vernon. Here he grew up and obtained
his education. So many had come from the same place that the
settlement in some respects had social relations similar to an old
neighborhood. But the soil, the forests and the timber lands
bore the primitive traits which compelled the struggle of the pio-
neers for progress in the comforts of civilization, consequently his
boyhood was that of the hardy frontier, amid the grim excitements
of stern revolutionary contests for liberty and self-government.
He remembered his father marching to the front, and, later, his
elder brothers enlisting in the struggle.

At thirteen he tried to take part himself, near the close of
the war, but had been refused by his father's exertions. The
mournful death of his brother Levi in a British prison pen had
entered like iron into his soul.

Devoutly did he and his thank God that they were free from
British tyranny. More than a hundred years prosperity, moral,
intellectual, material, cause us of today to repeat amen to that
hymn of thanksgiving which rose in America in 1782.

Our ancestors respected the noble-minded men who had
vainly resisted in parliament the endeavor of the ministry to
plunge the colonies into subjection. I had, until an accident de-
stroyed it, the portrait of General Wolfe on an enameled cup which
had come down from my great-grandfather, James, and I still
cherish a colored engraving of the great William Pitt which,

108

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 109

through more than a century, my father, my grandfather and my
great-grandfather had hung reverently in their parlors as the loved
lineaments of a friend of America.

Let the story of our gratitude to friendship stand side by
side with the chronicle of our persistent hostility to those who
wronged us.

Peter Woodbury, like his ancestors, was staunch in every
sense of the word, and his stock proverbially inherited the quality.
When he married and removed to Francestown at eighteen,
the road from Mount Vernon was merely a bridle path and very
little traveled. The days of mail routes had not come to these
pioneers, and communication with their families had its diffi-
culties.

I have heard my grandfather say that they had a small dog
who was intimately connected with both houses and served uncon-
sciously as a post rider. When a letter was to be sent, it was tied
about the dog's neck and some neglect or slight put upon him,
when he would shake the dust of that house from his feet and
proceed on the trail to the home of the other generation of the
family, where he would be welcomed in a way that gratified his
love and vanity.

A day or two after the letter was read, another was prepared,
another slight given, and the four-footed Mercury sped back to
the first house, where a greeting was certain to hurriedly efface all
unpleasant memories.

In this frontier life, the young couple lent themselves to con-
tentment with a resolution that was not to be disturbed by any
danger or suffering ordinary to that life. The burglar seeking
plunder was confronted by the axe which had been wielded by a
sturdy and dauntless chopper. The wolf prowling for mutton,
learned the sound of the old Queen Anne piece, and if he traveled
any farther, did so with a dire consciousness that it carried lead
devilishly strong.

The house extended, the clearings enlarged, the stones left
the arable land and sunned their sides as part of the stone walls;

110 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

the new land gradually yielded good crops, neighbors grew more
numerous, trade added its advantages to agriculture. The virile
force of this Peter's character exercised its influence over his
neighbors and through his section of county ; he was a counsellor
and leader. A question arose on the re-election of a county clerk,
who, it was argued, was the best man because he owned a safe
where the records could be kept secure. Mr. Woodbury said if
this were a good argument, the man should be elected for life.

For more than a quarter-century he was a magistrate, dis-
charging the duties with intelligence, moderation and justice. He
gave all his sons a college education, save his Jesse, who stayed
by the homestead and received it as inheritance. His daughters
were well educated, well balanced, intelligent and practical ; his
wife, a woman of rare merit, judgment and conscientiousness, was
appreciated by all, and the social position of these ladies was only
rivaled by the grace of their courtesy, their intelligence and high
womanhood. They attracted gentlemen of education, ability and
worth, and their marriages were all with superior men.

Dr. Adonigah Howe and his brother Luke were eminent sur-
geons of great inventive skill. Mr. Grimes, whom I never saw, was
highly esteemed. Mr. Eastman was a lawyer of ability and a
member of congress. Colonel Barnes was one of the most bril-
liant men of his age, no man in New England save the famous
Mather Byles, perhaps, equaling him in wit and humor. Mr.
Dodge was a lawyer of high ability. Mr. Bunnel a worthy gentle-
man of pure tastes, charming character, and fine domestic qualities.

The married lives of my aunts were all satisfactory. One
refused a gentleman who subsequently became president of the
United States.

I am scrambling along in this way because I write, having my
nephe\vs and nieces in view, who know little of such remote rela-
tives.

The oldest of the sons of Peter Woodbury was my father,
Levi Woodbury. I have published a memoir of him and need not
repeat.

OF THE WOODBUKY FAMILY. Ill

The next was Dr. Peter Perkins Woodbury, a good physician,
graduated from Dartmouth, living mainly at Bedford, N. H., pres-
ident of the medical association of the state, head of county agri-
cultural fairs, a leading citizen of his town. He married a Riddle,
and then a Gordon, both of leading families of the county.

In the " History of Bedford " there may be seen much of him,
and an address of Colonel Barnes which attracted great attention.
He practised his profession, dying in harness at sixty-eight. His
children are noticed elsewhere.

James Traske Woodbury was educated at Harvard, studied
law, practiced at Bath, N. H., then studied divinity and was or-
dained. He settled at Acton, Mass., but removed to Milton,
where he preached until his death.

Mr. Woodbury represented Acton one or two years in the
legislature and made a speech presenting a gun to the common-
wealth. It was borne by Captain Davis at Lexington, I think.
The pathos and eloquence of this speech made a deep impression
and gave him a wide reputation as an orator. As a preacher, he
was plain, quaint, often fervid, of vigorous thought and eloquence,
practical, rather than speculative, and ever able to take a deep
hold of his audience.

George Woodbury was educated at Dartmouth, studied medi-
cine and received his diploma. He established himself in Sartatia,
Yazoo County, Mississippi, where he resided thirty or more years,
until his death, marrying there. He represented his county one
or two years in the legislature, was very popular as a physician,
had a fine plantation where he raised cotton.

The war of the secession came heavily on his fortunes. When
our gunboats entered the Mississippi, he went on board of one to
ask protection for his buildings. A short conversation with the
commander revealed that he was born in Hillsboro', I think, the
adjacent town to Mr. Woodbury's birthplace. He was Admiral
Walker, nephew of Senator Grimes of Iowa. The protection was
accorded.

Jesse, the next older than George, preferred to remain with

112 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

his parents. He married Miss Dunklee. He was six feet high,
weighed two hundred and eighty pounds, of robust strength and
active habits, captain of the militia company in his town, a candid,
clear-headed, agreeable man. I doubt whether he had any politi-
cal ambition. He was very upright and greatly esteemed. I have
mentioned his weight. All of Peter Woodbury's sons were broad-
shouldered, heavy-molded men, none weighing less than two
hundred pounds.

As I recollect my grandfather, he was five feet, nine inches,
with dark eyes and hair. He had a frank look, with a penetrating
glance, a man with a great deal of will and resolution of character,
very strict in his attention to business, very decided in his opin-
ions on affairs. He was a respected and energetic magistrate.
He had a great deal of political experience and influence. He and
old General Pierce, the father of the late President of the United
States, used to pull together, and it was rare that they did not
have pretty much their way. When I first knew my grandfather,
he still exercised his function of justice of the peace.

He had several farms and much outlying wood and pasture
land, raised large quantities of horses and cattle, and was a most
extensive wool grower, having three and five hundred head of
sheep of the improved merino stock, his flock being about three
fourths bred. These sheep were generally pastured on his crotched
mountain pastures and wintered in a barn near the homestead.

When my father first went to the senate, I was left in Novem-
ber with my grandparents and remained till the first of July. It
was a stirring place to me, the kitchen full of hired men and dairy
maids, cooks and so on. Above stairs, the family consisted of the
younger portion of my aunts and uncles unmarried, three aunts
and two uncles.

The old mansion v.^as large. In the parlor were some oil paint-
ings and framed old colored prints. One of William Pitt, Lord
Chatham, a great favorite with my ancestors before the Revolu-
tion. There were vases on the mantel, a lovely miniature of my
pretty Aunt Eastman ; carpets, sofas, and rocking chairs, all that

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY. 113

paraphernalia with the big old brass andirons and fender. In the
usual sitting-room, I recall the tall old eight-day clock, with its
handsome mahogany case, a ship rocking away above the dial in
constant motion. A cushioned armchair for my grandmother,
where she sat in the afternoon ; another for my grandfather, near
the fire. Then there were bookshelves, a good little library, of
which my chief delight was a book on stock raising, especially
pleasing being the horse part.

There was a room beyond my grandparents' chamber where
the lodge of Freemasons held their monthly meetings. With
what awe my little pretty cousin and I used to approach the senti-
nel Tyler, who stood in the entry with his drawn sword, and how
fast we scampered when he turned his head toward us. Little did
I dream that this awful mystery would ever unfold its arcana to
my benighted eyes.

In the winter the watering of the animals was great enjoy-
ment. The large barnyard was full of stock, among them my
bane, a bay colt of two or three years old, who delighted in mak-
ing fun of me. I had two caps, one of black leather with some
fur around it, the other a double red wool peaked, the sort that
sailors sometimes wore. As soon as I came into the yard with
this cap on, the colt, when out, would march up to me and take
the cap off my head. Frequently he would come from behind,
and my first knowledge of his presence was feeling my cap lifted,
and he would caper off with his prize. The black cap never ex-
cited his mirth. Many were the conflicts we had, and often would
I turn my cap to evade a combat. On the whole, I think he got
rather the most fun out of the joke. If unconsciousness is the soul
of wit, I can now flatter myself with having made a horse laugh
frequently.

In the spring came the town meeting. Then I saw, face to face,
death for the first time. A sober and mature citizen was elected
selectman. The excitement affected his heart, and he died on the
spot. He was taken into my grandfather's and medical attention
sought to revive him, but in vain.

114 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Sheep shearing was a great joy, until I took it into my head
to chew some of the tobacco that had been brought to make an in-
sect-exterminating wash for their shorn backs. I also recall the
care of the fresh-dropped lambs, how many were taken to the
warm kitchen and hand-raised because the ewes would not or
could not nourish them.

And in the winter the work of the spinning wheels was
brought to a result. The weaving room was cleared, a fire
lighted, and the high old-fashioned hand loom, with its swinging lay,
was put to rights, the warps wound on the warp beam, and the
maids started a web of cloth. I watched its progress with rever-
ence; by and by it was done, cut out from the loom and taken to
the little fulling mill a short half-mile distant, on a brook that
ran through a beech tree pasture of my grandfather's. I forget
whether it was dyed at home or there.

When the spring ploughing came, in the spare hours after
school, I was initiated into planting pumpkins in the corn hills,
and then came the most joyous of all amusements, to ride with
my grandfather a few miles to the crotched mountain pasture
where his sheep and young stock were mostly kept. We took a
peck or so of salt with us, and as the cheery call of the old gentle-
man echoed among the rocks, the intelligent animals stopped their
feeding and came on a galop, rushing in an ectasy of competition
down the hills, sure-footed as antelopes among the labyrinth of
rocks, all crying their proper notes, and straining every nerve to
be first, colts, sheep, steers.

It was a sight of happiness and bounty, for pleasure beamed
from the eyes of man and beast. No tardy linger along the
mountain side, no unwilling visitors at the feast. Though fifty
years have rolled away since, I recall the scene with a thrill of
pleasure, although I alone am alive of all that moving tumult of
life. I can see that sorrel two-years-old coming down the moun-
tain, head up like young Mars, with a long slashing stride as
though no rocks bristled about him, outspeeding his bay peer with-
out an effort, and showing a gait that would, nowadays, provoke
from the trottins: men an immediate offer for him.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 115

In those days, one hundred and twenty-five dollars was a
large price for a thoroughly good five-years-old, well broken. I saw
plenty of horse breaking by my uncles ; they liked it. Also the
hitching up of a colt with a steady mare in a carryall and the driv-
ing off a dozen miles or two, on a visit to relatives or friends. I
perceive I have drifted into a description of country life a half-cen-
tury ago, as I then saw it. I accept the fact and continue.

My grandfather was fond of hospitality and was rarely with-
out visitors. The orchard and the cider making were a great in-
stitution. Thirty hogshead of cider went into the cellar, every
fall, and I doubt much, if any, was sold.

His house was across the green from the church we attended.
A cold meeting-house it was. Mr. Woodbury had bought his
pew in 1788 for eight pounds and three shillings ; my grand-
mother had a footstool filled with coals, taken over to keep her
feet warm during the long prayer and longer sermon. No dinner
was cooked in the house on Sunday, which I then thought a very
wicked and pagan usage. A cold lunch of pies, cheese and cold
meat was set out and severely punished. The hall and parlor
were full between services of church ; people living far away,
waited there through the intermission. After as protracted an
afternoon service, we were through for the day and a hot supper
did its best to remove from my stomach the chill which six hours
of orthodoxy had been inhumanly implanting.

My grandmother was very pious and strict in her religious
notions, very clear in her perceptions, with force of character and
excellent judgment. Her children looked on her with great rev-
erence, and in their mature life regarded her as a very superior
woman. Her husband highly appreciated her, and they lived
amiably together, it being one of those rare households where two
of strong character pull fairly in the yoke without collision.

In politics Mr. Woodbury was a Jeffersonian Democrat all
his life. Coming of age directly after New Hampshire was the
last of the states to accept the constitution with the restrictions
she imposed, the principles of liberty for the people and the states,

116 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

the defined limits of constitutional powers made a lasting impres-
sion on his mind. He had faith in the people, and the self-reli-
ance of such a people as Hillsboro county produced was a natural
outcrop of their moral qualities. New Hampshire completed the
prescribed number of states on whose acceptance the constitution
should go into effect.

I have not been able to complete my examination of the rec-
ords to trace his political acts. As a boy, like his parents, he had
been a rank patriot. I remember having heard him say that when
a boy of thirteen he ran away and enlisted in the army. But his
father came after him and took him out, much against his will. I
find that in 1805, he was postmaster, under Jefferson's adminis-
tration.

In 1817 he was justice of the peace and quorum and may have
been before. He remained in commission until 1833, or perhaps
to his death. In 1832 he was state senator, and was again elected
in 1833 and 1834.

The high school, which was the basis of the academy, was
founded here. His two oldest children, Mary (Mrs. Howe) and
Levi, were among the original scholars, to whom his son Peter
was joined in a few years.

Alert on the advantages of education, the leading citizens de-
termined to establish an academy, and in 1819, the legislature
granted a charter. Peter Woodbury's name comes first among
the list of prominent citizens who were the incorporators. It was
a success, many men of national reputation graduating from its
halls, among them a President of the United States, five m.embers
of congress, a general, numerous judges. I was there six months
when a shaver of five.

In 185 1, Hon. Levi Woodbury delivered the oration there,
and General Franklin Pierce made a most touching allusion to the
mother of Judge Woodbury.

August 17, 1870, I delivered the address at the reunion of
this old Francestown academy.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 117

Peter Woodbury of Francestown and his Descendants.

Peter Woodbury was born January 9, 1767, in Beverley. He
died at Francestown, N. H., September 12, 1834, aged sixty-
seven.

Mary Woodbury, his wife, was born August 15, 1770, died at
Francestown December 31, 1839, aged sixty-nine, three and a half
months. Their children were :

1. Mary, born October 28, 1787; died 1874.

2. Levi, born December 2, 1789; died September 4, 1850.

3. Peter Perkins, born August 8, 1791; died December 5, i860.

4. Anstriss, born May 29, 1793; died September 11, 1847.

5. Martha, born August 14, 1796; died December 15, 1854.

6. Hannah, born March 17, 1799; died February 27, 1S55.

7. James Trask, born May 9, 1803 ; died January 17, 1861.

8. Harriet, born May 9, 1805 ! died February 11, 1887.

9. Jesse, born May 17, 1807; died 1888.

10. Adeline, born April 22, 1809.

11. George Washington, born June 2, 1811, died November, 1875.

CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN OF PETER WOODBURY OF

FRANCESTOWN.

Mrs. Mary Woodbury Howe: Eloise, Isabella, Adonigah.

Levi Woodbury: Charles Levi, Mary Elizabeth, Frances Anstriss, Virginia

Lafayette, Ellen Carolina De Quincy.
Peter Perkins Woodbury: Peter Trask, William Riddle, Martha, Gordon,

George, Freeman, Charles, Levi.
Mrs. Anstriss Woodbury Eastman : Charles, Martha, George, Henry.
Mrs. Hannah Woodbury Barnes had no children.

Mrs. Harriet Woodbury Dodge : Perley Woodbury, Charles William, Martha.
Mrs. Adeline Bunnel : Two died young, and George.
Jesse Woodbury: Jesse P., Hannah, Adeline, James, Peter.
George Washington Woodbury : Robert, George.
Rev. James Trask Woodbury: Augusta, Porter, Mrs. Kent.
Mrs. Martha Woodbury Grimes : Mary Jane, who married William Morton

of Quincy, Mass.

118 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

Peter Trask, son of Peter Perkins Woodbury, married Sarah HoUen-
bacx Cist, of Wilkesbarre, Pa.; their daughter Emily married Charles E.
Dana, of Philadelphia, Pa.

Freeman, son of Peter Perkins Woodbury, married Harriet McGaw,
daughter of John A. McGaw ; their son FGordon, married Charlotte Eliza,
daughter of George E. Woodbury. His brother, John McGaw, married
Sarah Emilia Townsend Irvin, widow of Samuel Irvin. Helen, daughter
of Freeman and Harriet McGaw Woodbury, married William Shepard
Seamans, AI. D., of New York.

CHAPTER XIV.

MILITARY RECORDS.

THERE is great difficulty in following up the military history
of Essex County because no regular arrangement of state
papers concerning it has been made at the state house.
A great many papers are preserved there on the subject, many
also are missing.

The military was early organized in the beginning of the
colony, when field officers, captains, lieutenants of companies
were appointed by the General Court. Freemen were organized
into companies, " train bands " in the various towns, and others
incorporated into them ; their young sons were also admitted
where two or more townships were classed together to form a
company. One officer at least was appointed in each town, and
he trained six times a year, four times the squad of his town, twice
in company and regimental drill.

Buff coats were worn, corselets and hand-pieces as defensive
armor, by at least two thirds of the company ; matchlocks two
thirds and pikes one third. Flint came in after about thirty years
The military organization was under the management of a civil
committee appointed by the General Court, a subcommittee be-
ing in each town, with the deputy a member.

As I understand it, when a draft or press was ordered for
some special service, the ratio for each town was apportioned by
the General Court committee, and a requisition sent to each town
committee for so many men.

The town committee then proceeded by way of draft or vol-
unteers to raise the quota, and sent the men to the appointed
rendezvous, where the squads were formed into companies, of-

119

120 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

fleered by the government. At the close of the campaign, these
companies were disbanded and the drafts returned to their homes.

The troopers were an early object of great interest and en-
couragement by the colony, their horses and herds were exempt
from taxation, and the very best and most substantial of the citi-
zens were in their ranks and actully saw much service. (New Eng-
land Hist. Gen. Register, 1883, page 278.)

Every man of them provided his own troop horse and military
equipment. Early in the Bay history, the militia of the colony
was formed on a defensive basis, looking at foreign, European as
well as native Indian menaces. This may have been about 1634.
The militia companies elected their officers subject to the approval
of the general government. The regiments of the militia were
also formed of these companies. This rough outline may serve for
a general understanding,

From the public documents extant, it is extremely difficult to
trace who was called out. Town histories are more full as to
local people. Rev. M. Bodge has made a careful research of the
treasurer's accounts during King Philip's War and published his
results in the "New England Historical and Genealogical Reg-
ister," since which he has collected them in book form. They
told me at the state house that the records there failed to show
more than half to two thirds of the men who were called and mus-
tered in.

For the long period following the destruction of the Narra-
gansetts, the records of the state house are exceedingly incom-
plete, scattered, unfruitful.

We are safe in saying that all the male ancestry who lived in
the Bay Colony for the first fifty years were soldiers in the militia
except the ministers. Military rank was highly prized, and when
a man once had a title, it clung to him for life. It was more dis-
tinctive for identification than the Christian name, as " Quarter-
master Perkins," Lieutenant Burnham, Sergeant Peter, and so on.
" Deacon " was a cherished title, a certificate of high standing,
moral character, and stalwart puritanism.

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY, 121

In studying these early ancestors, it is of no consequence
what are our views of puritanism or regulars. In their community
at that time, for laymen these were the insignia of social standing,
capacity and quality given by their peers to the holders, through
the august forms of election.

Not here should be written a history of the constant attacks
of our frontier and the continual efforts of the colonists to repel
them and dislodge the French from their own colonies. Massa-
chusetts was engaged in the Pequot war, 1637 ; the Narragansett
war in 1675, and the following French wars extended the military
age to 1725, or including the Abuake wars. After this a peace
till 1755, when the great final struggle against French dornination in
Canada was begun and ended in its overthrow.

In 1707, we made an unsuccessful attack on Port Royal. In
1709, another on Quebec. In 17 10 we took Port Royal and held a
foothold in Nova Scotia, garrisoning it from the colonies. In
171 1, an unfortunate and expensive attack was made on Quebec ;
besides, there was constant scouting in defense of our frontier
towns, and efforts to destroy the villages of the Indian assailants,
who acted under French influence. A half-dozen treaties were
made with the Eastern Indians, which they broke in rapid succes-
sion.

How many of the ancestors were in active service in the
Pequot war, where Captain Trask led a fighting company, and
Endicot had a command, the records do not disclose, but it is
likely they were well represented.

In 1654, Colonel Sedgewick's expedition against Port Royal
was the next military event of prominence. It had been prepared
to attack the Dutch in New York, but an unexpected peace led
them to hurl it against the French in Arcadia.

Here we find enlisted Capt. William Dodge, who brought
home the Beverley meeting-house bell from a church at Annapolis.
The Woodburys also furnished their quota, Humphrey and Wil-
liam went with the fleet to St, John's and to Port Royal. Some
rich prizes were taken on sea as well as land. Their names are on

122 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

the roll of Captain Lathrop's company. In 1659 and 1667, among
the troopers who petitioned the General Court that their troop
should be exclusively a Beverley troop, we find Peter Wood-
bury, the two Humphreys, father and son, Roger Conant, Edward
Dodge, Henry Hendricks.

In 1667, by the Massachusetts Records, vol. 69, we see that
Thomas Woodbury suffered loss from his vessels having been
captured by Indians at the eastward, and now, July 16, petitions,
with others, for leave to send an armed smack with forty or fifty
men to warn others and recapture them.

Mather's " Providence of New England," page 12, relates an
interesting episode of this Thomas Woodbury or his son. They
were "sailing from New England for Barbadoes when they came
in the latitude of 35 degrees. Because there was some appear-
ance of foul weather, they lowered their sails ; sending one to the
top of the mast, he thought he saw something like^a boat floating on
the sea. He called a man and they lowered a boat and when they
reached it found that it was a long boat with eleven men in it who
had been bound for Virginia.

" Their ship had foundered six days before and they had cast
lots to eat one who begged for a little respite in which they were
rescued. An hour afterward a severe storm came which lasted
forty hours."

The Narragansett War broke out in 1675, and stirred the mil-
itary spirit of Massachusetts to its centre. It was known as King
Philip's War. My mother's ancestors were in it ; Eleazer Clapp,
son of Deacon Thomas Clapp ; Hezekiah Willet, son of Capt.
Thomas Willet, were killed in the early stage, 1676. James
Brown, son of Mr. John Brown, was in its outbreak.

Both in the male and female progenitors of my father's house
it was a severe calamity. At Bloody Brook, 1675, where "the
flower of Essex fell," Peter Woodbury, son of Humphrey, Mark
Batchelder, son of Mr. Joseph Batchelder, fell, and in other en-
counters Edward Traske, son of Osmand Traske, Josiah Dodge,
son of William Dodge, Sr., Bennet, grandson of John Perkins of

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY. 123

Ipswich, Joseph Wade, grandson of Jonathan Wade, laid down
their young Uves in defense of the firesides of the colony. The
hearts of their relatives were wrung with bitter grief and urged
forward their spirit to continue the contest to the end.

Among the colonists called into this fierce conflict, I find the
names of Lot Conant, brother of Mary Conant, wife of Capt.
William Dodge, uncle of the wife of Peter Woodbury, second ;
Capt. William Dodge himself ; Capt. John Dodge, brother of Sarah
Dodge Woodbury ; Capt. Joseph Herrick, father of Lydia Wood-
bury, and Gov. Joseph Herrick, whose daughter married
Isaac Woodbury ; Samuel Woodbury of Swansea; William Wood-
bury, Jonathan Wade of Ipswich ; John Haskell of Gloucester, son
of William Haskell ; John Traske of Beverley ; John Perkins, son
of John Perkins of Ipswich. Among these William Dodge and
John Perkins had personal hand-to-hand encounter with the Indi-
ans. Dodge killed two in one fight and saved his friend and com-
panion. Three good deeds, said the grave Puritan divine, Hub-
bard. He saved his friend from imminent peril and he killed two
Indians. The Narragansett tribe and that of Philip were wiped
out in this war.

After this, the increasing numbers of the French and English
and their direct trading influence on the Indians brought on con-
stant collision, not always chargeable to savage treachery. In the
east, the conflict rarely subsided into a truce for even a few months.

In 1681, William Haskell of Gloucester became lieutenant
and then captain of the company there.

September i8, 1689, Capt. Isaac Woodbury was captured by
the French privateer in his own sloop, "the Dolphin," and taken
into St. John's. There he met with one Giles, of a Salem family,
who had been captured at Pemaquid, several years before, and
was then living with a Frenchman on the river. Giles was after-
ward redeemed, became an official interpreter and captain of a
province troop. In a book which he wrote is an anecdote of
Captain Isaac. The latter must have been exchanged, for he
was home the next year.

124 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

I should insert, that on the accession of William and Mary, a
revolution against James the second's Governor Andros took place,
who with his counselors was thrown into prison. A revolutionary
government was established. Deacon Peter Woodbury was dep-
uty to the revolutionary general court. So was Capt. William
Dodge. The Dodges, Captain John and William, and the troop of
Beverley, were like all the rural population in arms. Still earlier
was William Haskell of Gloucester, who had officially, as select-
man, refused to collect taxes under Andros's levy and been prose-
cuted. Our relatives in Ipswich were in like resistance. They
denied the legality of taxation without representation of the citi-
izen. The colony was for William and Mary, the Protestant suc-
cession and the old charter, and it stood together, gaining all but
the latter. Very wisely, the same old deputies were sent back
under the new royal charter.

In 1690, Governor Phipps planned his expedition against Que-
bec, after having succeeded against Port Royal. In this went two
Woodburys, Humphrey and Richard. The will of Richard begins :
'■ Being called on this expedition in the service of God and my
country."

Captain William Rayment (Raymond) commanded the Bev-
erley company. His nephew John had married Judith Wood-
bury and his son George married Jerusha Woodbury. A township
was granted to him and his company for gallantry.

Town histories show that Capt. Mathew Perkins and Lieut.
Thomas Burnham served in campaigns to the eastward, and also
sons of Capt. Jonathan Wade, one of whose grandsons was killed
in an action with a French frigate at sea.

In 1705, Capt. William Woodbury was captured by a French
man-of-war while on a voyage, and taken into Port Royal.

In 1710, Samuel Woodbury was at Annapolis and Port Royal.

In 171 1, Nicholas Woodbury, while at Wells, Me., was cap-
tured by the Indians, taken to Montreal, where he was kept pris-
oner for nine years. His father made many attempts to ransom
him, but it was not effected until 1720. He had received a wound
which made him lame for life.

OF THE WOODBURY FAIMILY. 125

The General Court appointed him interpreter. His father
had spent sixty pounds, sending to Quebec often to redeem him,
and the General Court paid thirty pounds ransom.

The Marquis de Castine redeemed Samuel Traske in 1725,
from the Indians. He was a nephew of Osmand Traske.

Abel, grandson of Humphrey Woodbury, was captured in
the American Revolution and died on board a prison ship, 1778.

In 1727, Capt. Joseph Herrick died. He was the father of
Lydia Woodbury, wife of Josiah. He had long served in the
troop at Beverley and commanded a troop of mounted Rangers
who were out in the east.

The brother of Lydia Herrick Woodbury, Capt. Henry Her-
rick, 1688, was also in the field in 1745, as captain in the French
and Indian War. He married Joanna Woodbury, daughter of
Andrew Woodbury, and their son, Col. Henry Herrick, was
active participant in the opening operations of the Revolutionary
War, commanding a regiment and serving as representative in
1765 and for many years from Beverley. (Stone's " History of
Beverley," page 56.)

Among others noted are Josiah Batchelder, ensign ; at Louis-
burg, 1744, under Captain Ives; Samuel Woodbury, Israel Wood-
bury and Josiah Woodbury. Whether it was this Samuel Wood-
bury or his son who was afterward wounded at Concord, I cannot
state. In 1747, Nathan Woodbury was in the expedition to
Minas, Acadia, in Morris's company.

In the line of James Woodbury's wife we note John Giles,
who, under Turner's command at Haverhill, was wounded in the
attack of the French and Indians in 1708. Also Ensign Samuel
Tarbox, whom we find on the rolls of the Narragansett War.
Family tradition says he was killed, but proof is not obtainable.
The military services of Captains Herrick and Mathew Perkins,
like most others during the thirty years of constant, irregular war
after 1690, can with difficulty be collected from the provincial rec-
ords, because regular returns are few and have not been classified.
It is to be hoped in the interest of genealogists and history that

126 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

the commonwealth will cause the records to be gathered and
collated.

In these thirty years the fate of New England hung in the
scales with an undetermined poise. The energy of the French
home government and the supineness of that of England threw on
the colonies a burden beyond their strength, but their invincible
perseverance and game quality carried them on until English
statesmen realized the provincial idea that there was no security
for their lives or property except by conquering the French col-
onies, and the Indians thus forced to be dependent exclusively on
the English for supplies. New York felt it as much as New Eng-
land, but up to this time it had been a war for existence on our
side.

Now it was to become a war to conquer a peace which would
protect our frontiers from merciless murder, burning and desola-
tion, protect the women and children of our farmers, and render
agriculture and civilization possible and practical.

These grim Puritans of the seventeenth century were no
idlers. There was not much leisure to cultivate the courtly
graces ; a stern democratic sense was vigorously thriving within
them. They were busy with their industries and their serious
duties as Freeman to their town, provincial business, their mili-
itary trainings, and their church and religious duties. Temperate,
austere, careful, self-reliant, they were intelligent and logical,
their perceptions quickened by their town, jury, church, religious
and military work. With the growth of their commerce they saw
something of the world, but it only made them love their home
institutions the more. In their liberty and self-government, they
had abiding faith, and chafed at foreign interference.

These Woodburys lived an active life. Their public princi-
ples were of the Colonial school of liberty. They had no soft
places in their hearts for submission or loyalty that was com-
manded as a right.

This sentiment was plainly avowed in the effort to make one
federative union of the colonies. It failed because the colonists

OF THE WOODBUKY FAMILY. 127

thought it gave the king too much power and the king thought it
gave too much power to the colonists.

The boundaries of Nova Scotia were disputed and hostilities
recommenced. The French were strengthening their forts and
hold on the Ohio. Virginia was granting lands there and survey-
ing parties under Mr. Gist were laying them out. Colonel Wash-
ington ensasfed in his first fight, this unacknowledged war became
general, in 1775. Thus began the last scenes in the French
Drama of American Empire.

The cause won, and the energy, self-control, fixed principle
and policy that ordinarily takes a nation a thousand years to ac-
quire, were ripened, developed and declared for liberty, and
against feudal institutions. The young republic, self-poised and
sure in her course, took her departure from royalty and aristocracy,
sailed out on the ocean of liberty, pioneer among the peoples of
modern times.

c

CHAPTER XV.

SUMMARY OF SOLDIERS.

APTAIN Joseph Herrick of Salem was out in the Narragan-
sett War. He received a grant of land as one of the troops
engaged in it. He was called " governor." He was ances-
tor of Elizabeth Herrick, who married Isaac Woodbury, son of
Nicholas, from whom we are descended l)y the Widow (Dodge)
Rea, who married Peter Woodbury of Mount Vernon, N. H.
(Upham's " Salem Village.")

In 1758-59-60, James Woodbury, son of Peter Woodbury,
was in the French War at Lake George, Louisburg, Quebec, also
Revolutionary service in New Hampshire.

Peter Woodbury, father of James Woodbury of North Bev-
erley, married Hannah Batchelder, was sergeant in the company
of minute men of Capt. Caleb Dodge, his cousin, and served two
days at the battle of Lexington. He fought when near seventy
years old. In 1755 he had enlisted in Colonel Plaisted's regiment.

Ensign Samuel Tarbox was in the Narragansett War, 1675.

John Rayment, or Raymond, was the first man to enter the
fort in the attack on the Narragansetts in that war. He was
twenty-seven at date of the fight. He married Judith, widow of
William Woodbury ; their son George was in the Narragansett
war. In 1690, if he be the same John, he was shot through both
legs in Capt. William Raymond's company at Quebec under Gov-
ernor Phipps. Jonathan Raymond, who married Sarah Wood-
bury, was the son of John Raymond.

Capt. William Raymond had a company in the Canada ex-
pedition of 1690, and a township was granted to him and his sol-
diers in 1735. (Bodge, pages 215-233.)

128

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 129

In Captain Fuller's company, Bagley's regiment, in 1758,
were Samuel Woodbury, Josiah Woodbury, and James, the son of
Peter Woodbury.

Lexington Alarms, vol. 12, page 34, gives " Samuel Wood-
bury, Sergeant Peter Woodbury and William Woodbury — 1775."

Capt. Caleb Dodge's father was Robert Dodge, who married
Lydia Woodbury, daughter of Capt. Isaac and Elizabeth Herrick
Woodbury of Chebacco Parish. Caleb Dodge was born Decem-
ber, 1714; died March 6, 1798. Robert Dodge was son of Capt.
William Dodge and had Conant cross through his mother.

September 18, 1689, sloop "Dolphin," owned by William
Woodbury, was captured by a French corsair near Salem.

Isaac Woodbury was one of the merchants who subscribed to
make up a fleet for Phipps's expedition. A proclamation, June 6,
1690, offers them an equal division in the booty (half). This
Isaac was son of Nicholas and Anna Palgrave, and was father of
Elizabeth, who married Mark Dodge, and was mother of the Eliz-
abeth who married Peter Woodbury of Amherst.

William Haskell of Gloucester was in 168 1 appointed lieu-
tenant of the Train Band, of which he was afterwards captain.
(Hist, of Gloucester, page 99.)

Lot Conant, in 1675, was in the company of Captain Gardner
of Salem engaged in the Narragansett War. He was brother to
ancestress of Lydia Herrick, Mary Conant, who married Josiah
Woodbury. He drew a bounty share in Souhegan, West Narra-
gansett Township.

Jonathan Woodbury, son of Peter Woodbury, born May 20,
1736, removed to Royalston, was captain of militia in the Rev-
olution, present at Burgoyne's surrender.

Capt. Mathew Perkins as Lieutenant Perkins fought in a
campaign eastward against the French and Indians, referred to in
the history of Ipswich. Captain Perkins's wife was the daughter
of Lieut. Thomas Burnham.

Edward Dodge was in the Beverley troop, 1683. (Mass.
Rec, pages 409-10.)

130 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Maj. Nathaniel Wade, son of Jonathan Wade, was in the
Quebec expedition, 1690.

Of the collateral branch of the Woodburys there were many
soldiers.

In 1745, at Louisburg, were : Captain Howard's company,
Colonel Choat's regiment, Andrew Woodbury ; Captain Pike's
company, Serg. John Woodbury ; Benjamin Woodbury, Benjamin
Woodbury, Jr. (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., 187 1, vol. 25, pages

250-53-)

In 1744, in Captain Gordon's company, Israel, Josiah and
Samuel Woodbury.

April 6, 1756, Lot Woodbury was killed in French war by
Indians. He was son of Benjamin Woodbury, second, and Ruth
Conant, who moved to Sutton, Mass.

In 1775, Capt. Elisha Woodbury, of Salem. Born in Bever-
ley, was captain in Stark's regiment at Bunker Hill ; his son and
grandson were also with him and in many battles of the Revolu-
tion. He died April 26, 1850, aged eighty-nine.

Nathan Woodbury was in Captain Morris's company in the
Canada expedition.

In 1766, Zacharias Woodbury was in Captain Gordon's com-
pany.

In 1757, Richard Woodbury was in Capt. Israel Davis's com-
pany at Crown Point. (Mass Arch., vol. 94, page 520.)

Andrew Woodbury, corporal, A. Woodbury, private, Bazaberl
Woodbury. Nathaniel Woodbury, of Wenham, were in Captain
Whipple's company. Caleb Woodbury, Gloucester, Captain Gid-
dings' company.

In 1754, Jonathan Woodbury on Colonel Blanchard's muster
roll. Revolutionary soldiers, August, 1776 ; in Brown's company,
Cornelius Woodbury ; Luke Woodbury, Andrew Woodbury, Nishil
Woodbury. At West Point, 1779, Captain Porter's company, Col-
onel Tupper's regiment, Jeremiah Woodbury, Benjamin Wood-
bury, Benjamin, Jr., Israel Woodbury, Nathaniel Woodbury, Wil-
liam Woodbury. In 1776, Capt. Azariah Woodbury from Beverley.

of the woodbury family. 131

In the French Wars.

In the French wars we cannot find all who served the cause
of America on the records.

Peter Woodbury, Sr., of Beverley, 1755; James Woodbury,
1758, father and son.

Dr. Jacob Quincy, 1758-59, on land and sea.

Capt. Abiel Clapp.

In the Nova Scotia campaigns innumerable were the sons
who went, direct and collateral. In the Indian campaigns the
killed were Hezekiah Willet, Eleazar Clapp, Peter Woodbury,
Mark Batchelder, Dodge, Bennett, Wade.

Jonathan Traske, son of Osmand Traske, came to Gloucester
in 1722. His wife was Hannah Gage. They had seven sons, and
one daughter, Hannah. He died in 1745, leaving a son Jonathan,
who married Abigail, daughter of Capt. Charles Byles, This last
Jonathan was in the French War, at the taking of Quebec, in the
Revolution, at Winter Hill and Long Island. He was lieutenant.
He died in 1800 about, age seventy-seven. His son Isaac was
also in the Revolutionary War and while privateering was made
prisoner, but escaped. Israel, another son, was in the army and
in privateering, taken prisoner twice, and escaped. After the war
was twice a senator. He died at ninety. His son Olwyn was
wounded at San Jacinto and never recovered.

Peter Woodbury, my great-grandfather, marched April 17 as
a minute man to the battle of Lexington and Concord, aged sixty-
nine and ten months, under his cousin, Capt. Caleb Dodge, aged
sixty-one. Captain Elisha Woodbury and Ensign Luke fought at
Bunker Hill under Stark. From the Woodbury blood we have
several scores of Revolutionary soldiers. If like the century plant
it blossomed once in a hundred years, at least bore out its early
fame derived from John Woodbury and Roger Conant, in settling
and governing and rearing into prominence the infant colony
which they planted at Cape Ann.

It has given three governors to New Hampshire and one to
Vermont ; judges to New Hampshire and the United States at

132 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

large, distinguished citizens to Maine, Vermont, New York,
Massachusetts, California, Colorado; major-generals to the
Union ; arrayed itself for liberty and self-government in 1689 and
in 1775 ; left its dead in every sea during the French wars from
1675 to 1 761, and its blood on every hard-fought field during the
same period. The scalping knife and the prisoner's fate have
been familiar as the notes of victory and the recognized call of
humanity to aid those in peril and they who suffered in the for-
tunes of war.

Soldiers of New York (my mother's side).

Maj. Abraham Staats, 1669, was also a physician. His bow-
erie was attacked by Indians and two servants killed and the house
burned.

Capt. Johannes Wendell was commander of the fort at Al-
bany in Leicester's time. He was adopted by the Mohawk In-
dians as one of their tribe, with the mayor of Albany.

In 1673, Capt. Johannes P. Van Brugh was burgomaster of
New York.

Captain Teunis de Key was commander of a company after
Governor Slaughter came and Leister was arrested.

Captain Thomas Willet was the first mayor of New York.

Edmund Quincy was colonel of Suffolk regiment.

Judge Edmund Quincy of Massachusetts was also colonel of
this regiment. Dr. Jacob Quincy was surgeon at Crown Point
and in the navy.

Maj. -Gen. Daniel Gookin of Massachusetts.

Note : — The descendants of Abraham Staats, consanguineous to our
line, are found in Governeur Morris, a senator in the Revolution ; Maj.-
Gen. Lewis IVIorris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; Gen.
Philip Schuyler; Col. Nicholas Staats of the Revolutionary army; Col.
Stephanus Schuyler.

Descendants from Peter Van Brugh: Stone's " Burgoyne's Cam-
paign " is quoted as stating, of the eighteen Van Rensselaers who figured
on the patriot side of the Revolution sixteen were of the blood of Hendrick

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 133

Van Rensellaer and his Van Brugh wife. Among these were Hendrick
Van Rensellaer, Col. Nicholas Van Rensellaer, Commissary Philip Van
Rensellaer and Solomon Van Rensellaer. Also in this descent from Van
Brugh is cited Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, and Katharine Van Rensellaer, the wife of Philip Schuyler.

Colonial Officials,
deputies to the court of massachusetts.

1634, Roger Conant. 1683, Thomas Burnham.

1635, John Perkins. "1685-86, William Raymond.
1635, 37-38-39? John Woodbury. 1719, Nicholas White.
1644, Joseph Batchelder. i733. Samuel Clapp.
1653-59, Joshua Fisher. 1627-28, Edmund Ouincy.

1 672-80-8 1 -82-8 5- 1 692, William Haskell.

1689, William Dodge. 1627-28, Edmund Ouincy, 2d,

1690, William Dodge. Edmund Quincy, 3d.
1689-92, Peter Woodbury. 1649-50-53, Daniel Gookin.

OLD COLONY, DORCHESTER COMPANY.

1640, Walter Deane. 1626 to 1629,

1649, Thomas Clapp. Governor Roger Conant.

John Brown was one of the commissioners of the United Colo-
nies.

Thomas Willet was one of the governor's council, New York,
under Governor Lovelace, 1668 ; also mayor of New York.

governor's COUNCIL OR ASSISTANTS, MAGISTRATES AND LEGIS-
LATIVE :

Jacob Wendell, New York. Edmund Ouincy, 4th.

Abraham Staats, New York. John Brown, old colony.

Col. Edmund Quincy, Massachusetts.

Daniel Gookin, Massachusetts. Thomas Willet, old colony.
Johannes Van Brugh, New York.

134

GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Colonial Troops.

Gen. Daniel Gookin.

Col. Edmund Ouincy, 2d.
Col. Edmund Ouincy, 3d.
Capt. William Dodge.

" Jonathan Wade.

" William Haskell.

" Mathew Perkins.

" Joseph Herrick.

" J. Herrick.

1684, Col. Johannes Wendell.

Capt. Thomas Willet.
Capt. Thomas Caswell.

" Abiel Clapp.
Lieut, Peter Woodbury.

" Thomas Burnham.

" Joshua Fisher.
Nicholas White.
Capt. Teunis De Key.
Dr. Jacob Ouincy.

CHAPTER XVI.

WIVES OF THE WOODBURYS.
Agnes, Wife of John Woodbury.

WE are in doubt when he married her. The records of the
marriages of the early years of the church are not kept,
though the baptisms and memberships are from 1635.
There is a hiatus of six years, for the church was formed in 1629
and the list of membership gives the name of Agnes Woodbury,
though not stating when she joined.

When John Woodbury came to America the second time, he
brought with him a son, Humphrey, then twenty. Thus there
was a marriage prior to the union of John and Agnes.

Her daughter Abigail is recorded as baptized in 1635 ; Han-
nah in 1636 ; Peter in 1640, but this does not show how long they
had been married.

There are a few names of Woodburys in this early period
which are not definitely classified :

1. Lydia Woodbury, married Henry Herrick, who was born
in 1640.

2. Sarah Woodbury, married Richard Hollingsworth, ances-
tor of the Ingersoll and Philip English families. (See Vol. 11,
Essex Inst. Hist. Rec, page 229.)

3. One John Woodbury, who had a wife and family.

In the records appear John Woodbury and wife Eliza.
Children :

Elizabeth, baptized June 15, 1654.
John, baptized, 1657, died 1662.
Abigail, baptized April, 1660.

He died and the widow married Capt. John Dodge. She
seems to have had another child, Ebenezer Woodbury, by her

135

136 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

first marriage. This Elizabeth, wife of Capt. John Dodge (son of
William), died in 1726, aged ninety-four. This would put her
birth in 1632. Assume her first husband to have been as old as
she, he was born in the hiatus of record, previously referred to.

Humphrey Woodbury had a son John, baptized in 1641, on
the 24th of August.

" John, son of sister Woodbury the younger " who was only
thirteen years old at the birth of Elizabeth, daughter of John and
Eliza Woodbury, is not the John in question.

There is no record of either John or William Woodbury hav-
ing a son John. But there is a deed on record in 171 1, Essex
County, made in 16 — , a copy of which I have, by which certain
lands of John Woodbury are conveyed to Humphrey Woodbury,
St., Cornelius Baker, Peter Woodbury, and Elizabeth Dodge, the
widow of John Woodbury, deceased, with her son Ebenezer, are
parties granter.

The presumption is that these lands were part of the " Old
Planter's " estate and came to John Woodbury, Jr., and is thus
conveyed. I wrote to the Rev. O. G. Woodbury, of Salem,
N. H., who descends from this John per Eben, my opinion that it
looked that way but was not conclusive. Of course there is no op-
posing testimony.

"Sarah" Woodbury, wife of Richard Holliugsworth, came
over in 1635, i^ the " Blessing " with her husband, a man of good
estate. The roll of passengers states his age forty, his wife's
thirty ; their children were William, aged seven ; Richard, four ;
Elizabeth, three ; and Susan, two years.

The biographer of the Ingersoll family (Essex Hist. Reg.,
vol. 11) is mistaken in calling her " Sarah," as he evidently refers
to her as the mother of William, Junior. Her name was Susan.
She was born in 1605 and could not have been the daughter of
Agnes Woodbury, who was raising a flock of children in 1635-40.
She was older than Humphrey, and might have been the daughter
of John by his first marriage.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 137

There is little of fact known about Lydia Woodbury Herrick,
who was the wife of Henry Herrick. I have no information where
to place her.

In the " Old Planters " I have had somewhat to say about the
identity of "Agnes," " Annis " and " Ann," as a Christian name
at that time ; it is unnecessary to repeat it.

Mrs. Woodbury sold her house in Salem to Mr. Conven and
was the occupant of the " Old Planter's " grant, in Beverley, and
there closed her days. Her children were settled around her, and
we conclude they made a loving group, esteemed by their neigh-
bors, standing high in civil and religious society.

In 1667, her name, Ann Woodbury, Sen., appears on the list
of the signers of the First Separate Church in Beverley, which
called Rev. Mr. Hale to its pulpit, on its being separated from the
church of Salem.

The children of John and Agnes, baptized at Salem, were Hannah, Abi-
gail, and Peter.

1. Hannah, baptized December 23, 1636. married April 26, 1658,
Cornelius Baker, and Mr. Derby states their children as :

Hannah, baptized October 4, 1660; died November 6, 1662.

Hannah, baptized November 28, 1662.

A child born March 28, 1662.

Twins, Samuel, Cornelius, July 21, 1667.

Jonathan, born September 14, 1669.

Abigail, September 6, 1672.

Priscilla, October 11, 1674.

Bethiah, May 27, 1677.

John, December i, 1678.

Jabez, March 6, 1682.

2. Abigail, baptized September 12, 1637, married John Hill in 166-.

3. Peter, baptized July 19, 1640.

Peter Woodbury (son of John) married twice. The first wife
was Abigail Batchelder, daughter of John Batchelder, who lived
in Royal side, afterwards Beverley or Danvers, then part of Sa-
lem. Abigail was baptized in the First Church at Salem in De-
cember, 1642, the 1 2th.

138 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

John Batchelder, the elder, died September 13, 1675, and his
wife Elizabeth had died on the loth of the same month and year.
(Essex Hist. Col.; another statement is that he died in 1673, aged
sixty-five.) He left sons, John and Joseph ; daughter Hannah
Corning, and grandchild Cressy, named in his will. (Essex. Hist.
Col. 2, page 183.) He came from England to Salem in 1635, was
elected Freeman in 1640. It is supposed he came from Dorches-
ter. Land near Mr. Bishop's in Salem was granted to him. His
inventory shows he had accumulated a fair estate for those times.

Abigail Batchelder Woodbury bore her husband one child, bap-
tized December 12, 1655, who subsequently became another
Deacon Peter Woodbury.

John Batchelder's descendants are set forth in the " Herrick
Family Memorial," his son John having married a Herrick. There
is no similarity save in name between him and Joseph Batchelder
of Enon. He states in his will in 1673 that he is sixty-three. His
will was proved in September, 1675.

Mary Dodge.

Mary Dodge married Deacon Peter Woodbury, second, No-
vember 15, 1692. She was the daughter of Edward Dodge and
Mary Haskell, married April 30, 1673. Edward died February
13, 1727. Mary, his wife, died in 1737.

Edward Dodge's will was filed in probate in March, 1727, but
was dated February 17, 17 14. He mentions his daughter Mary
Woodbury.

This Mary Woodbury was born in 1673 (Dodge's book states
April 21, 1675). She died in 1763 ; her husband had died in 1708.

He was the son of Deacon Peter and Abigail Batchelder, his
first wife. Mary Dodge Woodbury, known as " Madam Wood-
bury," was a very notable person ; she settled the minister, Dr.
Chipman, at North Beverley over the new church by her casting
vote in 171 5. She was a liberal donor to this church and owned
considerable property in the parish. She may probably be claimed
as the first example of female suffrage in the colony. She owned

OF THE WOODBCJKY FAMILY. 139

a number of slaves and lived in the old house in North Beverley
which Deacon Peter first bequeathed to her husband. In Mr.
Hale's memoranda of matters in Beverley she is often referred to.

Her children were : Joseph, Abigail, Benjamin, Mary, Mercy,
Peter and Rebecca. (Peter, who was born June 20, 1705, and died
May 14, 1775, was the father of James Woodbury who moved to
New Hampshire.) In 1690, she was received into the First
Church. In 171 5, she was transferred to the Second Church of
Beverley, the north parish. (See Bible of Joseph Woodbury of
Sutton.)

Edward Dodge and his wife, her father, son of Richard Dodge,
baptized 1602, appear at Salem in 1638, asking for a location.
Richard Dodge settled just east of " ye Woodburys " in Dodge
row, and died June 15, 1671, leaving an estate of seventeen hun-
dred and sixty-four pounds, two shillings. His wife, Edith, died
1678, aged seventy-five years. He was a liberal subscriber to
Harvard college and to the church at Wenham. His son, Lieut.
John Dodge, who probably came over with his father, served in
the Narragansett War, and was at the capture of Annapolis. He
was deputy to the General Court in 1677, 1680, 1682, 1683, 1689,
1690. His daughter Sarah married Deacon Peter Woodbury.

Mary Haskell, the wife of Edward Dodge, was the daughter
of William Haskell of Gloucester, Mass. Married in 1673, she died
1737. (Babson's Hist. Gloucester, pages 99-100.) William was
connected with the family of Roger Haskell of Beverley, being
his brother or his son. He was born in 161 7. He was first at
Beverley, but in 1643 came to Gloucester, where he married Mary,
daughter of Walter Tybbott, Esq. He was a prominent man, and
vindicated his zeal for the liberties of the colony by refusing, as
one of the selectmen, to levy a tax imposed by Governor Andros,
because it was illegal ; this was in 1688, " a feeble but magnani-
mous effort of expiring freedom." For this he was arrested with
four other selectmen, tried, and heavily fined, by the superior
court at Salem. He was selectman in 1672, '73, ^y^, 'ycf, '80, '81,
'82, '85, '92. In 1681, he was appointed lieutenant of the Train

140 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Band and afterward commissioned its captain. He was also
deacon of the First Church. He died August, 1693.

Walter Tybbott was the father of Captain Haskell's wife.
He was born in 1584. He came to Gloucester with the Rev. Mr.
Blynman, removing from their former residence in the Old Col-
ony ; he was made Freeman in the Bay colony in 1642. He was
one of the commissioners at Gloucester; a judge, and exempt
from training. He was elected one of the selectmen in 1642, '44,
'45, '46 and in 1650-51. Not only was he of the first board
elected by the town, but he had previously been one of the eight
appointed by order of the General Court to the commissioners
and empowered to order all the concerns of the settlement, 1641.
He died in 165 i, aged sixty-seven. He left a good estate. His
wife survived, and one daughter, Mary. His widow married John
Harding in 1652. Walter Tybbott was one of the largest pro-
prietors.

Hannah Batchelder.

Hannah Batchelder was the wife of Peter Woodbury of Bev-
erley. She was of Wenham. Her intention of marriage with
Peter, published in February, 1729, was soon followed by the
ceremony, March 19, 1729-30. Rev. Robert Ward, pastor of the
Wenham church, united them.

Hannah Batchelder Woodbury, daughter of John Batchelder,
was born May i, 1709, and received into the church at Wenham
December 24, 1727, on profession, and on February 28, 1730, she
was transferred as Hannah Woodbury to the Second Church at
Beverley. In 1731 she was received into communion in the church
at North Beverley.

Joseph Batchelder of Canterbury, Kent County, England,
came to Salem in 1636 with his wife Elizabeth, one child and
three servants. They settled at Enon, now Wenham. The
" History of Amherst, N. H.," stated that he had two sons, John
and Mark, two daughters, Elizabeth and Hannah, and one child
not named.

OF THE WOODBUKY FAMILY. 141

He was elected Freeman in 1637, deputy to the General
Court in 1642-43 and in 1644, having been the first representative
from Wenham to that body. June 7, 1644, he was on the commit-
tee appointed by the General Court to revise the laws of the col-
ony. His son Mark was killed on the march to the Narragansett
fort in December, 1675.

Felt's " History of Salem," in connection with some work of
charity, speaks in the first edition, page 161, ot " Mr.-Batchelder of
Enon," showing the regard in which he was held. The records of
Wenham show he had much to do with public business.

John Batchelder was baptized April 11, 1638, in Salem. He
married Mary Dennis, July 12, 1661. They had a son Joseph.
Mary died June 26, 1663. May 4, 1665, he married Sarah Good-
ell. They had four sons and four daughters. Robert Goodell, in

168 1, by deed sells a farm to his daughter Sarah. He was of
Salem where he was a large landholder. His will was made in

1682. His wife Margaret survived him.

John Batchelder, son of the preceding John, was baptized
January 18, 1666-67, and died January 20, 1754, aged eighty-seven.
His wife was Hannah, apparently the Hannah Tarbox named in
an intention of marriage, November 28, 1702. She died July i,
1 718. Their daughter Hannah, born 1709, married Peter Wood-
bury and was mother of James Woodbury.

I do not know whether the early settlers, Joseph of Wenham
and John of " Rialside," the father of Deacon Peter Woodbury's
first wife, were any kin. Impressions are they came from dif-
ferent counties.

The town records of Salem show that December 24, 1637,
sixty acres of land were granted to " Mr Joseph Batchelder of
Enon," now Wenham. He stood high in his neighborhood, was
liberal in town and church matters, and a valued citizen.

Hannah Traskf,.

Hannah Traske of Beverley, baptized October 4, 1641, mar-
ried November 5, 1761, James Woodbury, then of Beverley. She

1-12 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

was a daughter of Josiah Traske and his wife Abigail of Beverley.
They moved to Mount Vernon after 1766, to the lands which his
father had given him. In time they assumed the aspect of civil-
ized culture. Mr. Woodbury's thoughtful generosity endowed
them with land for a church. He did able service in committees
to take care of the families of soldiers, and those of public safety,
advancing money to speed the cause they both had at heart. The
baptisms recorded of their children show that James and Hannah
had three before they left Beverley.

Hittie, baptized October 15, 1762.
Abigail, March 17, 1765.
Hannah, November 2, 1766.

I have had the records searched with care to ascertain the date
when James and Hannah Woodbury removed to New Hampshire.
Mr. Perkins says they were the first to plant their hearthstone in
Mount Vernon, on the mountain wild.

Their daughter Mary, my grandmother, was born in New
Hampshire. Their children were all girls. I have described them
in their father's memoir. Mrs. Woodbury was the mother of nine
daughters, all of whom she saw well married. She died in
Francestown, October 5, 1819, and reposes in the family burying-
ground.

Her father, Josiah Traske, baptized May 6, 1697, married as
a second wife, in 1736, Abigail . Her children were :

John, in 1736.
Hittie Hutchinson, in 1738.
Hannah, in 1741, October 4.
Hittie married a Cressy.

The will of Josiah refers to these daughters and to his wife,
giving them the reversion of certain personal and other estate
which he leaves to the widow for life. It was proved 1771, but
was signed January 30, 1768.

The first wife of Josiah was Mary, daughter of Peter Wood-
bury, whom he married April 12, 1719. They had five children.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 143

She died in 1732, and Josiah acquired quite an estate in her right,
because her father died intestate. In 171 5 there was one distri-
bution, and in 1728, a further one.

I get these Traske pedigrees from the Traske family. The
Rev. J. L. R. Traske thinks that Josiah second, son of Josiah, is
the one who removed to Sutton, and afterwards to Monson, and
was the ancestor of the lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts.

This Josiah, second, baptized October 30, 1720, was the eldest
son of Josiah and Mary Woodbury Traske. There were five other
children, Peter, Abigail, Mary, Ruth, and an infant child, died
May 6, 1730.

Josiah Traske, first, was, they tell me, the son of Samuel
Traske, baptized 1675, whose wife was named Susannah. This is
not, I believe, the Samuel Traske who was redeemed from the
Indians at Bayaduce (?) by Baron Castine and taken from him by
Captain Kidd. According to the New Eng. Hist, and Gen. Reg.,
page 162, 1893, he was the son of Capt. William Traske, baptized
1 67 1, who died in Maine over one hundred years old.

John Traske was the father of Samuel, Benjamin, Joseph and
Jonathan. In 1675, he was out in the Narragansett War in the
company of Captain Gardner of Salem, and saw much service.
He was baptized April 15, 1653. (Essex Hist. Col., 3d, page

234-)

There is serious doubt of his being in the pedigree. Better
judgment is that Samuel was the son of Osmand Traske of Bever-
ley and his second wife, Eliza Galley.

Osmand or Osman Traske was said to be the brother of Capt.
William Traske of the Pequot War, an "Old Planter." He was
born, 1625, in Somersetshire, probably on the Bristol Channel, say
some, came to America, and lived among the Old Planters on the
Beverley side of the river. Osmand Traske and his wife Mary
were married November i, 1649. Their children were :

Sarah, baptized July, 1650.

Edward, baptized April 6, 1652, killed in the Narragansett War, 1675.

John, baptized June 15, 1653.

144 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

William, born and died, 1660.
Mary, born March 6, 1667, posthumous child.
(3 Essex Hist. Col., page 234.)

Mary, the wife of Osmand Traske, died January, 1662. He
married a second wife, Eliza Galley, and seems to have had chil-
dren. She married John Giles.

Note. — There are Traske wills at South Petherton and it is not cer-
tain that the Traskes did not come from that section of the country. There
are Traskes now at Stoke Abbas in Dorset, a dozen miles from South
Petherton.

In a deed of February 18, 1687, Mrs. Giles mentions her sons
by a former marriage, Samuel, Joseph, Benjamin, William and
Edward. (Giles memorial, also Essex County deeds 3645.)

Osmand Traske had land by the Woodburys, and I find a
deed, February 15, 1674, where he and Cornelius Baker et al.,
bought land, bounded on the north by land of Cornelius Baker,
Edward Bishop and Osmand Traske, 1673, laid out to him, forty
acres at the northeast corner of Bishop's land. His inventory is
filed March 27, 1667, which was about the date of his death. He
left his wife executrix, and his inventory is valued at eight hun-
dred and seventy-one pounds. He left eight children, mentioned
in the will. Evidently there are discrepancies in the authorities,
but the Rev. Mr. Traske of Spriagfteld thinks Samuel was the son
of Osmand.

Sarah Dodge, Second Wife.

In July, 1657, Deacon Peter Woodbury married his second
wife, Sarah, daughter of Richard and Edith Dodge, who had come
from Middle Chinnock, County Somerset, England, and settled in
Beverley. Richard was the son of John Dodge, of Middle Chin-
nock.

The record of Richard Dodge and his patriotism and liberality
have all been dwelt upon in these pages. He left lands in Eng-
land to his brother Michel, who did not come to this country,
although his son " Coker " William, came.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 145

Sarah Dodge Woodbury was baptized July 2, 1644; died Sep-
tember 19, 1726, aged eighty-four. She was the mother of Josiah
Woodbury and had daughters, Sarah Raymond, Abigail Lamson,
Anna Herrick, Martha Brown, Jerusha Raymond, also Priscilla and
Rebecca, who were unmarried at the date of Deacon Peter's will.
Subsequently, Rebecca married Samuel Corning of Beverley.

Mrs. Woodbury survived her husband and lived with her son
Josiah, being well provided for in the will, some of whose provi-
sions are now unique.

Martha married Ichabod Brown, and was ancestress of Peter
C. Brooks, Esq., of Boston, born in Medford, whose daughters
married Charles Francis Adams, Edward Everett, and Mr. Froth-
ingham. Bishop Phillips Brooks was descendant of Martha
Brown.

Another of her grandchildren, Elizabeth, daughter of Rev.
John Brown, married John Chipman, Esq., lawyer, and their
daughter Elizabeth, baptized June 9, 1756, married the rich mer-
chant William Gray in 1782, who was afterward lieutenant-gov-
ernor of Massachusetts, among whose distinguished descendants
are Justice Horace Gray of the United States Supreme Court.
Ward Chipman, judge, etc., of New Brunswick, was son of Eliza-
beth and John Chipman, Esq.

Anna Herrick was the wife of John Herrick, who died in
1742. She was born in 1674, and died in 1769. He was the son
of Joseph Herrick, who has been mentioned in Upham's " Salem
Village," as a man of high character, deputy from Salem, served
in the Narragansett War, etc.

Sarah Woodbury Raiment (Raymond) was married to Jona-
than Raymond February 20, 1659. Rachel, their daughter, mar-
ried, 171 3, B. Ober. He died, and then she married, in 1740,
William Bartlett, Jr., who was a captain in the French war, in
1759, at Quebec. " Capt. Flynt sells him" my Spanish Indian
boy Pete, about sixteen years old.

Deacon Raymond died January 14, 1745, about seventy-six.
Sarah, his wife, died in 1747, February 17, aged seventy-six.

146 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

This Jonathan Raymond was the grandson of John Raymond,
who came to Bass River side in 1654, and married Rachel
Scruggs, the daughter of Mr. Thomas Scruggs, who purchased
the farm of Capt. WiUiam Traske in the "Old Planter Grant."
Salem records are full about Mr. Scruggs, who was one of the be-
lievers in the Anne Hutchinson doctrines and was disarmed by or-
der of the General Court. He was a gentleman of talent and
quality.

His son, John Raymond, married Judith Woodbury, widow of
William Woodbury, Jr. He was the first man to enter the Nar-
ragansett fort in the attack on it, in 1675. He died in 1702.

Jerusha Woodbury married George Raymond March 28, 1698.
They had children :

Hannah, baptized 1609; married Joshua Dodge.
Abigail, baptized March 10, 1703.
George, died before 1709.

He was the son of William Raymond, brother of John, who
came over in 1654. William came to Bass River about 1652.
He was in the Narragansett War, captain of the Beverley troop,
commanded a company in the Canada Expedition in 1690, and in
1685-86 was deputy to the General Court.

John Raiment, Sr., appears to have been in Newichawannock
until the death of Captain Mason, After this, he and his brother
William were at Beverley.

After the grant to the soldiers in the Narragansett War the
General Court granted land to those in the Canada Expedition.
Captain Raymond and his soldiers received a township in Maine
for their sufferings and gallantry at Quebec. Thus he was twice
honored by the province of Massachusetts for his public services.
Three Raymonds were in the Narragansett War.

When the wife of Richard Dodge died in 1677, she appears
to have left the draft of a will, but the administrators reported the
certificate of the children that the estate had been divided to their
satisfaction and among the signatures was that of " Peater Wood-
bury."

of the woodbury family. 147

Lydia Herrick, Wife of Josiah Woodbury.

The Herricks are an ancient English family, claiming Norse
descent from Eric the Red. Sir William Herrick was ambas-
sador to Turkey in the time of Queen Elizabeth. He was
knighted, and owned the rich estate of Beau Manoir, Parish of
Loughboro, County Leicester, England.

His fifth son, Henry, came to Virginia and then to Salem,
where he settled in 1629. Robert Herrick the poet was his
cousin, as was also the mother of Dean Swift. (The " Herrick
Family " contains the pedigree of the family in England and
America and their coat of arms.) Henry Herrick's name appears
among the first thirty who formed the first church in Salem, 1629.
He married Edith, a daughter of Mr. Hugh Laskins of Salem.
She was born in 1614 and was living in 1674. Henry Herrick
died in 1671.

They left eight children who survived infancy. The fourth
was Henry Herrick, second, baptized January 16, 1640; died June,
1702. He was married to Lydia Woodbury, says the family
memorial, and had five children. His second wife, Sarah Gid-
dings, 1690, had none.

His son, Capt. Joseph Herrick, baptized September 26, 1666,
died 1726-27, was married to Mary Dodge, born 1630 to 1633,
died in 1706. She was the daughter of Capt. William Dodge (son
of William Dodge) and Mary Conant (widow of John Balch),
daughter of Roger Conant, first governor of Cape Ann and Na-
humkeik. I find Capt. William Dodge and his wife Mary Conant
in 1696, conveyed houses and lands to Joseph Herrick, apparently
their son-in-law. (Dodge's genealogy, 1892.) Their children
were :

Mary, baptized May 15, 1686; married Andrew Elliott.
Henry, born September 9, 1688.

Lydia, baptized May 6, 1691 ; married April 9, 1708, Josiah Wood-
bury, son of Deacon Peter Woodbury. Josiah was born June 5, 1682.

148 GENEALOGICAL SKE:TCHES

Lydia's brother was Capt. Henry Herrick, a captain in the
French and Indian wars, who married Joanna, daughter of An-
drew Woodbury. He died 1755. He had a son Joseph, baptized
July 18, 1714; a son Henry, baptized October 5, 1716, who was
an active Revolutionary patriot in 1772, and during the war, be-
sides his public services, held the rank of colonel. (Stone's " His-
tory of Beverley.") He was iirst cousin of Josiah Woodbury.

Mary Dodge, mother of Lydia Herrick Woodbury, was
daughter of Capt. William Dodge and Mary Conant, married in
1662 or '63, whose first husband, John Balch, was drowned Jan-
uary, 1662. Captain William was born at Salem September 19,
1640. He was the son of William Dodge, who came over in
1629. Capt. William Dodge was in the Narragansett War. He
was also at the capture of Port Royal, 1654. He commanded the
Beverley Troop, and was deputy to the General Court in 1689-90.
He was prominent at home, and performed many town duties.

Mary Conant was the seventh child of Roger Conant, bap-
tized April 9, 1592 ; died November 19, 1679, and his wife, Sarah
Horton, whom he married in 1618, November 11.

Roger Conant was an Old Planter, one of the five who were
called " The Five Old Planters," Conant, Palfrey, Woodbury,
Balch, and William Traske, who joined them, as I understand it,
when they made their settlement at Nahumkeik. Conant was
governor for the Dorchester company at Cape Ann in 1626, and
at Salem in 1627-28-29, until the arrival of Captain Endicott, in
September, 1629, representing new purchasers.

Edith, wife of Henry Herrick, was the daughter of Hugh
Laskins and Alls, his wife. They were in the early names of the
first church of Salem, 1629, being the fourth name.

In 1658-59, an inventory of his estate was returned to court,
so he must have died not long before. In 1636, he had seventy
acres of land at Jeffrey's Creek, now Manchester-by-the-Sea ;
1636, the town of Salem grant him almost ten pole of land to the
waterside "by that place the Old Planters do move from." The
inference is that he had a house and land near the present railway

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 149

depot in Salem. The town records show grants, clearly indicating
he resided on that side of Bass River.

In 1639, May 12, Hugh Laskins was elected a Freeman of
the Bay Corporation. In 1636, he was granted sixty acres next
to John Woodbury's. He had another meadow by Bevor Pond.
It is plain that he lived next to John Woodbury and Mr. Dodge,
and not at Jeffrey's Creek. In the divisions of meadows next
year, he is stated to have three persons in his family. In 1641, a
servant of his is witness in court.

CHAPTER XVII.

PERKINS ANCESTRY.

JOHN PERKINS, Sr,, was born in Newent, Gloucestershire,
England, 1590, and with his wife and five children sailed from
Bristol, England, December i, 1630, on the ship " Lyons " ;
arrived in Boston February 5, 1631.

May 18, 1631, he was elected a Freeman of the Corporation.
In 1632, the General Court granted him the exclusive privilege of
taking wild fowl with the net at Pullyn's Point, now Shirley, and
forbade all from shooting near there. He was one of the four com-
missioners appointed to fix the boundaries between Dorchester
and Roxbury.

A daughter Lydia was born to them in Boston. In 1633, he
removed from Boston to Ipswich, being one of a small party who,
with John Winthrop, Jr., made the frontier settlement with the ob-
ject of checking the inroads of the Tarratine Indians and the French
as it was claimed. (Perhaps Captain Mason's title to Mariana was
also in view.) Here he had grants of lands at v^arious dates, and in
1636 represented the settlement as deputy to the General Court.
In 1648, he was on the grand jury and held various town offices.
When over sixty, in 165 1, he was relieved from military duty,
and died in 1654, aged sixty-four. (Essex Hist, and Gen. Col,
19.) A number of articles can be found that relate to the Per-
kins English descent and coat of arms.

Jacob Perkins, son of John, Sr., was his sixth child, born in
England in 1624. His wife Elizabeth died February 12, 1685,
after which he married Darnais Robinson, a widow. His children
were by his first wife.

150

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 151

He was appointed sergeant of the military company in 1664,
and ever after wrote " Sergeant Jacob Perkins," to distinguish
himself from others of that Christian name, and was so styled.
He inherited half of his father's real estate. He was a farmer,
buying and selling land. His house was struck by lightning on a
Sunday in 1671, when full of people. He married in 1648, and
died January 29, 1 699-1 700. He had nine children, of whom
Mathew was sixth.

Capt. Mathew Perkins was born June 23, 1665. He was
son of Sergeant Jacob, and in 1685-86 married Esther Burnham.
He died April 15, 1738. I have gathered but little about
him. He served in the French and Indian wars. Esther Burn-
ham, his wife, was the daughter of Lieut. Thomas Burnham.
They had several children. Their son —

Mathew Perkins, Jr., was born in 1688. He married Martha
Rogers about 1709. She was baptized October 12, 1691. Math-
ew, Jr., died, May 28, 1737.

Their daughter Hannah married Josiah Woodbury, second,
1 73 1. She was baptized December 20, 17 13, at Ipswich, and died
June 20, 1 76 1. She bore her husband thirteen children.

Burnham.

Esther, wife of Captain Mathew, Sr., was the daughter of
Thomas Burnham, lieutenant, of Ipswich and was baptized March
19, 1666. (History of Ipswich, and " Burnham Family.")

Thomas, John and Robert Burnham were sons of Robert and
Mary (Andrews) Burnham of Ipswich, England, and as boys came
over with their uncle. Captain Andrews, in the "Angel Gabriel "
that was wrecked in 1635 at Pemaquid. Two of the boys came to
Chebacco, Ipswich, and settled there. Thomas had served in the
Pequot War, but whether under Endicott in 1636, or later under
Stoughton, is not known. In 1639, ^^^^ ^^^ granted a Burnham
for services in this war. Thomas was born 1623, and in 1645 was
married to Mary, described as the step-daughter of John Tuttle.
In 1647 he was selectman, sergeant, ensign, lieutenant of the

152 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

troop, and seems to have served a campaign at the eastward and
at some time to have been captain. He was deputy to the Gen-
eral Court in 1683-84-85.

Rogers Family.

Martha Rogers was baptized October 12, i6gi. She was the

daughter of John Rogers and Martha (who married a second

husband of the name of Boarman). John Rogers was the son of
Samuel Rogers and his second wife, Sarah Wade, born April 9,
1667.

Samuel Rogers came to Ipswich with his father in 1636. He
was born at Assington, County Suffolk, England, November 16,
1634. His second wife, married November 13, 1661, was Sarah,
daughter of Mr. Jonathan Wade of Ipswich. His first wife had
not issue. She was Judith Appleton. He was town clerk in
1653, and in 1681-82, one of the petitioners to the king about the
Mason grant. He died 1693.

His father was Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, concerning whom I
give the account by Mr. Walters in " 2d Genealogical Gleanings
in England " :

England.

1. John Rogers and his wife Mary of Chelmsford. John died 1579,
his will proved 1601.

2. Rev. John Rogers of Dedham, England, and his second wife, Eliza
Gale Haines.

3. Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, who came here, died July 3, 1665 ; his
wife, Margaret Crane, was the daughter of Robert Crane and Mary Spar-
hawk, who was of Dedham, daughter of Samuel Sparhawk. Robert Crane
was of Great Cogge-shall, in County Essex. He died in 1658. His wife
died in January, 1675-76, on the 23d. She was born about 1610.

Note. — Robert Crane by will gave four hundred pounds to Mrs.
Rogers and fifty pounds each to her five sons. Her brother Samuel gave
lands to her and her children in England, as did her brother Robert.

4. Samuel Rogers was born in Assington, January 2, 1634-35, died
in Ipswich January 21, 1693. Rev. Nathaniel Rogers by his will leaves to
Samuel one hundred pounds of his estate in England and one hundred
pounds of his estate here.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 153

Mr. Walters thinks that Margaret Crane, wife of the Rev,
Nathaniel Rogers, could not have been the daughter of Mary
Sparhavvk, baptized February i, 1600. This is a genealogical dis-
pute.

A further distinction gathers about this Margaret Crane.
Hubbard's " History of Massachusetts," page 121, recounting the
small beginnings of the hopeful plantation of Massachusetts,
states that in 1629 the company raised for a common stock, seven-
teen hundred and eighty pounds, mostly in subscriptions of twenty-
five pounds, but names some half-dozen who subscribed fifty pounds
apiece, one of whom was Mr. Robert Crane, father of Mrs.
Rogers ; another, William Hubbard, father of the historian.
Mary, sister of Samuel Rogers, married the historian,

Mr. Robert Crane did not come over here, but to us, his
American descendants, his claim as one of the founders of the
Bay Company, where eight or nine generations of his descendants
have lived, has a laudable special interest.

The other account of the parents of Rev. Nathaniel Rogers
is that they were the Rev. John Rogers of Dedham, England, and
his wife Elizabeth Gold. Neither came to America.

The Rogers family here gave ministers for a hundred years
to the church at Ipswich, also some to Portsmouth, N. H. They
claim a descent of the Rev. John Rogers of Dedham from the
proto-martyr, John Rogers who was burnt at the stake in Smith-
field, but the validity of the claim is disputed by genealogists.

Samuel Rogers, oldest brother of Reverend John, was the
fifth president of Harvard College, 1676. He was born at
Coggeshall, 1630, came to America with the family in 1636.

The daughter of President Rogers married Judge Appleton of
Ipswich, who was colonel, representative, member of the gover-
nor's council, from 1698 to 1722.

Note : — As to the Rogers family, see Essex Hist. Col. 12, page 296;
Ibid 15, page 304; New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., 5, pages 105-224, also 17.
No.'i, page 43.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WADE.

AMUEL ROGERS'S wife was Sarah, daughter of Jonathan
Wade of Ipswich. He died June 24, 1684, one of the wealthi-
est men of the colony. There was a great dispute over his
will, the name on the later one being torn off and there being an
older one. His estate was seven thousand eight hundred and fifty-
nine pounds, three shillings, part of which was land in England.
(4 Essex Hist. Col., pages 23, 24, 6S, 69, 70.)

It was a notable family. Mrs. Rogers's brother, Thomas
Wade, died 1696, judge of Probate Court, colonel of Essex militia.
He had a son killed at sea, 1697, in a battle with the French.
Another brother, Nathaniel, married the daughter of Governor
Bradstreet, Mercy or Mary. In 1690, he was major in the expe-
dition against Canada. Another brother, Jonathan, married Deb-
orah, youngest daughter of Gov, Thomas Dudley. (From him
Colonel Wade of the Revolution descended.) Another brother,
Nicholas of Scituate, married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas
Ensign. Their son Joseph was killed at Rehobath, 1670, under
Captain Pierce.

Mrs. Rogers's sister Mary married William Symonds, the son
of Deputy Governor Symonds of Massachusetts. William was
deputy from Wells to the General Court in 1676. Her sister
Prudence married Dr. Anthony Crosby, and next. Rev. Seaborn
Cotton.

Jonathan Wade and his wife Susannah probably came over in
the ship " Lyon," 1632, and was at Charlestown. He and she
were received into the church in 1633. He was elected a P>ee-
man 1632, and removed to Ipswich in 1636.

164

THE WOODBUEY FAMILY. 155

In 1639, h^ ^^^ ^ grant of two hundred acres of land because
he was a subscriber to the original stock of the Bay Company.
In 1649, because Thomas Wade of Northampton had taken sixty
pounds of the common stock, and in 1652, the General Court gave
him four hundred more acres, on account of the fifty pounds for-
merly disbursed by him for use and behoof of the county.

In 1657, when in London, he was called a merchant. In
1669-81-82, he was deputy to the General Court. In his will he
gives land in the parish of Denver, county Norfolk, on the west
side, one mile from Downham Market, whose inventory value is
given as sixteen hundred pounds.

Hubbard's " History of New England," page 121, states that
in its infancy the company raised a common stock to meet the ex-
penses ; besides the assistants, twenty or thirty others subscribed
the sum of ten hundred and thirty-five to carry on the plantation,
and June 17, 1629, seven hundred and forty-five more was raised
by several others. Some few advanced fifty pounds : Mr. Vassel,
Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Crane, and Mr. Wade ; Mr. Whitcomb, eighty ;
the governor, one hundred. This shows the honorable relations
Mr. Wade held to the founding of the Bay Company.

Mr. Wade, with a liberality not surpassed by any of the pro-
moters, put his hand to his purse and his shoulder to the wheel
in the Massachusetts enterprise, and his descendants recall that he
came personally and helped to make the wilderness blossom as the
rose, and left behind him a race who have also done the state
some service. Massachusetts contains some five millions acres
that were the property of the company, of from twenty to fifty
subscribers.

The noble spirit of the shareholders who left ninety-nine and
four fifths of the land for public purpose should not be forgotten.

Dodge.

The biography of Elizabeth Dodge, widow of James Rae, who
married Peter Woodbury, 1760, has been given before. She was
descended from Richard and Edith Dodge who came to Beverley in

156 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

1638. Edward, the youngest son of this Richard and Edith, mar-
ried, 1673, Mary Haskell, daughter of William Haskell of Glouces-
ter, Mass. Edward died February 13. 1727. Mary, his wife, died
in 1737. Edward and Joseph were executors of their father's
will, inheriting a valuable farm which they did not divide for a
long time. Edward's daughter Mary was the wife of the second
Peter Woodbury, who was son of Lieut. Deacon Peter Woodbury
and Abigail Batchelder, his first wife.

Mark Dodge, baptized 1695, married, first, Sarah Dodge, and
on her death, Elizabeth Woodbury, January 25, 1721-22, daughter
of Isaac and Elizabeth Herrick Woodbury. One of their children
was Elizabeth Dodge, who married, first, James Rea or Ray, and,
second, Peter Woodbury, and was mother of Hon. Peter Woodbury
of Francestown.

This Elizabeth Woodbury, wife of Mark Dodge, was daugh-
ter of Isaac, who was son of Nicholas Woodbury, who married
Ann Palgrave.

Nicholas was son of William Woodbury, the first, and Eliza-
beth Patch, whom he married in South Petherton, Somerset
County, England. From this Nicholas and Ann are descended
Governor Langdon of New Hampshire and his brother, Judge
Woodbury Langdon, Revolutionary patriots.

As such connections are of great family interest, divergence
to show them is excusable.

NICHOLAS WOODBURY AND ANN PALGRAVE.

Nicho

as

1
m. Elliott

Isaac

m. Eliza Herrick

Mary

m. Josiah Hall

Eliza

m. James Rea

Peter Woodbury

Mary

Hall

m. John Langdon
Portsmouth, N.

H.

Peter ^
France

1

Voodbury m. Mary Woodbury
;stown

Governor John Langdon

and
Judge Woodbury Langdon

Hon. Levi Woodbury, N. H.

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY, 157

There is also another cross between them, as John Woodbury,
ancestor of Peter and William Woodbury, father of Nicholas, were
brothers : thus two lines of cousinship existed.

Nicholas Woodbury, second, died and left a rich widow, who
married Capt. Kinsley Hall of Exeter, royal councilor at one
time in New Hampshire. His son Josiah, by his first wife, a
Dudley, married the daughter of Nicholas. (Essex County Rec-
ords has deeds and wills, and reference to marriage settlements.)
Captain Hall was guardian of some of his step-children ; lived
several years at Beverley, and settled probate accounts there.

Elizabeth Herrick Woodbury, the wife of Isaac, was daughter
of Henry Herrick of Beverley, who was baptized January i6, 1640,
and died 1702. Elizabeth was baptized December 6, 1668, and
was sister to Capt. Joseph Herrick, from whom we descend. He
was the father of Josiah Woodbury's wife.

The Herrick genealogy states Elizabeth's mother was Lydia
Woodbury. Her father was the son of Henry and Editha Laskins
Herrick. Henry, husband of Editha, was the fifth son of Sir Wil-
liam Herrick of Beau Manoir in the parish of Loughboro.

Isaac's father, Nicholas, was a man of substance and standing,
interested in navigation and in several farms in New England.
His estate here was valued at twenty-five hundred and seventy-
three pounds. He left real estate in Great Yarmouth, England.
(Isaac had half his land in Ipswich and Chelnow ; Andrew the
other half ; Hugh a farm on the Taunton River.) On the back of
the original will which is probated in Boston, May, 1686, is en-
dorsed : " Cousin Nicholas Woodbury, His Will " in Deacon Peter
Woodbury's handwriting. Nicholas was sixty-nine when he died.
The will of his son Nicholas is proved at Salem, and recorded
there.

Nicholas left the lands in Great Yarmouth to his wife, Ann
Palgrave, who conveyed in a deed the whole property to four of
her children, Joseph, Isaac, her daughter, Joanna, wife of Samuel
Plummer, and Abigail, wife of Richard Ober, March 8, 1700.
Her estate was a life estate, the remamder was in her son Nicho-
las.

168 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Nicholas Woodbury, born at South Petherton, in 1617, was
the son of William Woodbury (brother of John, the Old Planter)
and Elizabeth Patch. The date of his arrival here is not known.
In Wyman's Register of Charlestown, it is copied, but the date of
his marriage is not given, though the baptism of the oldest child
leads to the inference that it must have been in 1651, as Joanna
and Abigail were both baptized in 1653.

Witnesses, recorded in the " Notarial Records, Salem," testi-
fy that Ann Palgrave was brought over from Great Britain by her
stepfather. Rev. John Young. She was about eleven years old
when she came to America. She died at Beverley, June 10, 1701,
aged seventy-five, from which she must have been born in 1626,
Her mother, Joan Harris Palgrave, was a widow who married the
Rev. John Young for a second husband.

In 1640, one John Thorn of Beverley made a nuncupative will
in presence of Elizabeth Harwood, Margaret Jackson and Eliza
Eticks by which he gave all his estate to Ann Palgrave, except his
best hat to John Jackson and something to James Thomas. It
was probated 1646, and the inventory returned by Jeffrey Massey,
George Emery and John Herbert.

The original papers are in the office of the Register of Deeds,
Salem. The Thorn, Jackson and Herbert families removed to
Southold, L. I., where Rev. Mr. Young, with his wife, had settled
in 1639 or 1640 ; he was the first minister, and retained the pastor-
ate till death in 1672,

Palgrave.

The Palgrave family is ancient and highly connected in Nor-
folk County, having several branches, and have a book, " The Pal-
grave Memorial," prepared by John Charles Palmer and Stephen
Tucker Rougecroix from Herald authority. I procured a copy
after much trouble.

It states that in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, June 24, 1625-26
Richard Palgrave, Y. S., was married by special personal license to
Joan Harris. In the list of births is that of Ann Palgrave, Octo-
ber 29, 1626, daughter of Richard and Joan.

OF THE WOODBUHY FAMILY, 159

Looking at the tables, I see, page 60, table third, page 10,
mention of Richard, son of John and Annie Palgrave. This Rich-
ard was baptized at Pulham, St. Mary the Virgin, January 29,
1597-98, and the remark is that he was living in 161 8. His
parents are stated to be John Palgrave of Pulham, St. Mary the
Virgin, and afterward of Pamworth, baptized at Pulham, St. Mary
Magdalen, May 20, 1563, buried at Ranworth, September 15,
1618, and Amy, buried at Ranworth, March 11, 1603-04.

The above John was the son of Thomas Palgrave of Pulham
and Christian, daughter of Thomas Sayer, married at Pulham, St.
Mary the Virgin, Norfolk County, July 3, 1558. He was buried
there February 17, 1594-95, and she October 3, 1607.

The foregoing Thomas was son of Thomas Palgrave of Pul-
ham, St. Mary Magdalen, Norfolk County, will dated May 14,
1544, proved August 22, 1545, and Elizabeth, buried at Pulham
October 28, 1558, will proved January 11, 1558.

There is in the foregoing pedigree an inference of identity in
the Richard Palgrave of Yarmouth, with the Richard baptized at
Pulham which I know of nothing to disturb, and adopt it, pro hac
vice.

Note. — The Palgrave Memorial has names of three Palgraves at Yar-
mouth, Jeremy, William and John, besides the marriage of Richard in
1626. Now these four are the names of sons of John and Annie Pal-
grave ; or, as John is only mentioned as a landowner there of part of the
Convent of Grey Friars, he may be the father whose will is printed,
but the other three are evidently the sons.

The identification of Richard Palgrave would appear to be
conclusive.

Their marriages are given in the appendix of the Memorial.
Page 32, treating of the descendants of the Rev. Edward Palgrave
of Barnham Broom, has a note respecting his son. Dr. Richard
Palgrave, who emigrated to America with his family in 1630 and
settled at Charlestown where he died 165 1. It gives his descend-
ants, also a son Benjamin buried at Wyndham or Wymondham in
1623. I have followed carefully through the records here this Dr.

160 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Palgrave and his family. The name of the wife of this Dr. Pal-
grave was Ann, and his children can all be traced. His will con-
tains no reference to our Ann.

The English record shows that he was married in 1623, and
our Richard married Joane Harris in 1625-26, and their daughter
Ann was born October 26, 1626. Our Ann died in 1701, aged
seventy-five, which would place her birthday at 1626, in conformity
with the English record.

The Memorial also has a note of the death of Ann Palgrave
Woodbury in America, " Ann, relict of Nicholas Woodbury,
maiden name Palgrave died in Beverley, June 10, 1801."

This error, " 1801," was probably due to some transcriber
who sent the wrong figures to the English editor, which would ren-
der it impossible to trace her pedigree in England. There are only
two Palgraves traced in America. The genealogies which they
collected from English records, enable us by the age and death
found here to fit her into her birthright with accuracy. It is
through the blood of this American representative of the Pal-
graves there has descended many illustrious men.

There are two adjoining parishes named Pulhams in Norfolk,
Pulham St. Mary Magdalen, called Pulham Market, and Pulham
St. Mary the Virgin, called Pulham Mary.

In 1558, Thomas Palgrave's son of Pulham Market married
Christian, daughter of Thomas Sayer, a considerable landed
proprietor. In 1681, Thomas Sayer and William Palgrave, de-
scendants, were returned as lords of the manor. In the church of
St. Mary Magdalen are several monuments to the Palgraves, the
oldest of which is a gravestone with a shield of arms sculptured on
the stone in memory of Thomas Palgrave, who died in 1638.

Ann Palgrave's blood flows in many families in America.
Among some are Gov. John Langdon of New Hampshire,
president of the Continental Congress, and senator; Woodbury
Langdon, his brother, judge and senator ; the Storers, Woodbury,
Bellamy and the admiral ; the Bunnels of New York; the Tears ;
Gov. Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, senator, secretary of

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 161

navy, treasury, and justice of Supreme Court ; Dr. Perkins Wood-
bury, president of New Hampshire Medical Society ; Judge Luke
Woodbury of New Hampshire.

Ann's mother by her second marriage with Rev. John Young
became ancestress of a strong race at Southold, L. I., among
whom is Gov. John Young of New York.

CHAPTER XIX.

WILLIAM WOODBURY.

WILLIAM WOODBURY was the father of Nicholas Wood-
bury. It is not certain when he came to America,
though local historians think about 1631. He married
Elizabeth Patch in 1616 in South Petherton, a parish in the south-
eastern part of Somerset, England. The parish register shows
that his sons, Nicholas, William and Andrew, were baptized there.
William, Sr., was born about 1589 and died in 1677, aged eighty-
eight, at Beverley, Mass.

His children were Hannah Haskell, wife of Roger 2d, son of Roger
Haskell; Nicholas, married to Ann Palgrave ; Hugh, married Mary Dixie,
daughter of William Dixie ; Andrew, married Mary ; Isaac, mar-
ried Mary Wilkes ; William, married Haskell. (See Town Rec,

1657.)

There is also statement of another son, Nathaniel, baptized
in 1639. (Essex Hist. Col., page 237.)

William, Sr., received two or three small grants of land near
the Old Planters. He appears to have had other occupations be-
sides agriculture, from a letter, dated 1648, addressed to him and
John Balch from Tristam Dolliber of Stoke Abbas, County Dor-
set ; it shows he was in London on business that or the previous
year.

In 1652, Tristam Dolliber confers the power of attorney on
William Woodbury and Samuel Dolliber of Marblehead. These
documents are in the New Eng. Hist. Gen. Register, vol. 31,
page 312, July, 1877.

William Woodbury was elected a Freeman of the Bay Com-
pany. In 1667, an independent church was formed in Beverley,

162

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 163

and William Woodbury, Sr., was one of the original members.
He was one of the church at Salem. His wife was also a mem-
ber. Her brother, Nicholas Patch, emigrated to America and
lived in the Bass River settlement ; also others of her family.

William Woodbury was one of the five witnesses to the In-
dian deed (1686) that the grandsons of the old chief Saggamore
George made of the lands of Salem to that town, (i Essex Hist.
Col., page 151.) Evidently it was a quit claim deed, and the wit-
ness was not this William, but a son. There are a few details of
him scattered along the Salem town records, but not of sufficient
consequence to be repeated.

John Woodbury and his son Humphrey, William Woodbury
and his sons gathered on the Bass River and mackerel cove settle-
ments and formed the root and base of the large families of Wood-
burys who labored and persevered to create the civilization we
enjoy.

CHAPTER XX.

MARY WOODBURY.

MARY WOODBURY was married to the Hon. Peter Wood-
bury of Francestown, born January, 1767; died Septem-
ber 12, 1834. She was the daughter of James Woodbury
of Mount Vernon, N. H., and his wife, Hannah Traske Wood-
bury. Mary was baptized August 15, 1769. She was the mother
of eleven children who, by their vigor of mind and intelligence,
were useful and worthy members of society. They are noticed in
the memoir of their father. The profound respect in which they
held her was caused by her sterling virtues and strength of
character. She was noted for her simple piety and broad grasp of
mind. I passed a winter under her roof, as a boy, and retain a ten-
der recollection of her quiet manner, unvarying kindness, and her
systematic, well-trained housekeeping. Her afternoons were us-
ually spent in reading in an easy chair by the window, where she
could receive the cheerful influence of the afternoon sun.

One lacks the subtle discrimination necessary to analyze the
qualities and combination to make a great and successful mother,
who rears her children in unity and peace, developing their minds
and guiding their energies into channels that count for righteous-
ness and social virtue. A crown of glory to her husband, esteemed
by her neighbors and her church, a firm anchor to those who re-
lied on her for help or comfort, and withal, tender, gentle as she
was firm, and unobtrusive though energetic in performing every
duty.

General Pierce, afterward President of the United States,
took occasion on his eulogy of her son to bestow the highest en-
comium on that son's mother. Old Governor Pierce had been a

164

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 166

lifelong friend of Hon. Peter Woodbury, and his son Franklin,
when at the Francestown academy, had resided in the family of
Mr. Woodbury. The remarks referred to were made at the quar-
ter-century anniversary of Francestown Academy.

Mrs. Woodbury lived to see all her children settled in life, pros-
perous, happy and winning golden opinions in the public and pri-
vate circles in which they moved. She dwelt with her son, Cap-
tain Jesse, who had the homestead after his father's death, and
there she enjoyed the peaceful decline of years until the flame of
life expired. She died December 31, 1839, aged sixty-nine years
and three and one-half months. In the old Woodbury lot in
Francestown graveyard where she lies, may be read the memo-
rials of three generations of the family.

Her son Levi, baptized December 2, 1789, was judge, gover-
nor of New Hampshire, senator of the United States twice, secre-
tary of the navy, secretary of the treasury, and associate justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States. He married Elizabeth
Williams Clapp of Portland, Me. Their children were :

1. Charles Levi, unmarried.

2. Mary Elizabeth, married Judge Montgomery Blair of Missouri.
Their children were :

Woodbury, Minna, Maria, Gist, Montgomery.

3. Frances Anstriss, married Archibald H. Lowery, Esq., of New
York. Children :

Woodbury, and Virginia Woodbury.

4. Virginia Lafayette, married Capt. G. V. Fox of the United States
navy.

5. Ellen Carolina de Ouincy, unmarried.

The following estimate of Judge Levi Woodbury is from the
pen of a political opponent : " He worked sixteen hours a day af-
ter appointed, and even in later years. . . . He was endowed by
nature with a ready apprehension, vigorous mental grasp, and am-
bition to succeed. . . . Whatever the problem before him, polit-
ical or judicial, he grappled with it unhesitatingly. . . . He never
rose to speak without a full understanding of his subject. All the

166 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

aid which careful study and mature reflection could afford, he
brought to the consideration of every question. . . . His facts
and his arguments he marshaled logically and systematically.
Mental characteristics fitted him peculiarly to administer the law.
His calmness and poise, never stirred by feeling or bias, his even-
tempered patience, and desire to do exact justice, his thoroughness
and determination to go to the bottom of the case before him —
these were qualities not only to make him a model judge, but also
which is next in importance (perhaps) to be recognized as such
by the community, and gave him his firm hold upon their confi-
dence. . . . For some time before his decease the eyes of his
friends and party had been turning towards him as their probable
candidate for the loftiest office in the gift of the people of the
Republic, and there seems little question that had his life been
prolonged he would have succeeded to that high honor. But he had
accompUshed enough to prove the great powers that were in him,
in administering with such distinction the important legislative,
executive and judicial functions that devolved on him." (Bell's
" New Hampshire Bar.")

CHAPTER XXI.

CLAPP.

ELIZABETH WILLIAMS CLAPP, who married the Hon.
Levi Woodbury, was the daughter of Hon. Asa G. Clapp of
Portland, Me., and EHzabeth Wendell Quincy, his wife.

Hon. Asa G. Clapp was born in Mansfield, Mass., March 15,
1762, and was the son of Abiel Clapp. He was descended from
Deacon Thomas Clapp, who came to America in 1633 and was
born in 1597, the son of Richard Clapp of Dorchester, England.
Deacon Thomas Clapp was the cousin of Capt. Roger Clapp and
Edward Clapp, also emigrants to America, sons of a brother of
Richard Clapp, who resided in Devonshire.

The death of Capt. Abiel Clapp left his son Asa dependent
on his own exertions. The Revolutionary Rolls of Massachusetts,
vol. 20, page 93, and the " History of the Town of Norton " alike
show that in 1777, April, and also in May, June and July of that
year, Asa Clapp was enrolled in Captain Trow's company in ser-
vice in the Revolution. In 1778, Asa Clapp was one of the nine
months' men in Captain Hodge's company ; and in a secret ex-
pedition from September 23 to October 31, Captain Hodge's
company had enrolled Asa Clapp. He was only fifteen years old
when he entered the Revolutionary service. He was in Rhode
Island under General Sullivan, and also in Long Island. I have
heard him speak of these.

When his last term of service was out, he abandoned the
army and sought a more adventurous career upon the ocean, in
defense of the flag as that flag was mainly defended by volun-
teers, privateers' enterprise. He served under Captain Dunn.

167

168 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

He rose to the rank of third officer and then to that of first lieu-
tenant of the ship. The memoir of him in the " Lives of Ameri-
can Merchants" has a graphic account of his capture in an open
boat of an eight-gun brig in a calm, while his own vessel was out
of gunshot and only his boat's crew aiding.

The close of the Revolution saw him, though little more than
of age, the master of a vessel. He had ripened rapidly in the hard
school of war on the ocean, and in many engagements distinguished
himself by activity, resolution and judgment. He had been
wounded in some of these conflicts.

He continued to follow the sea with success, enlarging his in-
terests in various vessels and exploring the resources of commerce
in many countries. The Spanish Main, the Baltic, the West In-
dies, France, England, became familiar to him in his voyages. He
spent six months in England, obtaining the release of his ship and
cargo, irregularly seized by Sir Sydney Smith in disregard of neu-
tral rights. He also passed a winter in Copenhagen, detained by
political disturbances of trade, but good fortune awaited his judi-
cious^conduct of affairs.

In 1787, he married the lovely and accomplished daughter of
the late Dr. Jacob Ouincy, brother of the celebrated Dorothy
Quincy, wife of John Hancock. Their marriage certificate, signed
by Rev. Thomas Smith, dated March 30, 1787, is in my possession.
In a few years he established himself at Portland.

It is not necessary to recapitulate the extent or success of
his enterprises in Europe and America, the West and East Indies,
the number of vessels he had built, the mechanics and mariners to
whom he gave employment. The troubles from belligerents
pirating on the neutral rights of his country and spoliating his
property were not disastrous to him while his business continually
prospered. He obtained indemnity after many long years.

He was a sturdy Democrat, and supported the government
and the Embargo. I have heard him tell, while his vessels were
tied up to the wharves and the Embargo was stopping all trade,
he would daily ride to Blackpoint (Scarboro) to a farm he had

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 169

bought, and busy himself clearing up an alder swamp and conver-
ting it into meadow. During these times of trouble he supported
the government, substantially, cheerfully loaning his money, about
half his fortune, and joining a company of Fencibles for the de-
fense of Portland, then threatened by British cruisers.

In 1811, he was elected a member of the governor's council
of Massachusetts in Governor Geary's administration, and lived
to enjoy the success crowning the sacrifices he had made in behalf
of his country.

During and after the war of 1812, the hospitality of his man-
sion was generally extended to the army and navy officers visit-
ing Portland, and at a later date he had the honor of entertaining
President Monroe when he visited that town.

In 1816, the President appointed him one of the commis-
sioners to obtain the subscriptions for the capital stock of the Bank
of the United States, to which Mr. Clapp was the largest sub-
scriber in Maine. This he sold subsequently, preferring state
banks as investments.

The erection of Maine into a state was a cherished project
which he zealously advocated. In 18 19, he was elected one of the
delegates to the convention for the framing of a constitution, and
exercised a salutory influence on the measures and debate. He
sat for several years in the legislature when Maine became a state,
and he was highly valued, for his opinions and influence were al-
ways cast for the right. He was a speaker of remarkable clear-
ness.

He carried on his business to near the close of his life ; and
had the satisfaction of benefiting by President Jackson's success-
ful diplomacy in securing indemnities for the spoliation of our cit-
izens in the great wars of France and England.

When President Polk visited Portland in 1847, learning that
the veteran patriot was confined to his home by the infirmities of
age, in company with Secretary of State James Buchanan and
Commodore Charles Stewart of the navy, he went to Mr. Clapp's

170 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

house where the old gentleman, rising from the sofa, grasped their
hands and feelingly welcomed them.

When a boy, I passed two winters in his family while my
parents were in Washington. He made a deep impression on me.
He was ready and quick in perception, had a strong, keen humor
which he exercised with an imperturbable countenance. The
fashions of the last century in some degree clung to him. He
wore his hair in a queue and powdered. He was straight as an
arrow.

His table service showed the effect of foreign travel. The
substantial viands and exquisite Madeira, always selected by his
friends, the March brothers of Madeira, were patriotic in their
American refinement and plenty ; always a spare chair at the
table for a guest, and often it was filled.

Mrs. Clapp was of no slight ability as the lady of the house,
and not to be surprised by the sudden appearance in her parlor of
a French or Spanish correspondent in business, a stray American
legislator, a "going " naval oflficer or a home friend.

Wealth could give luxury, but there was more than this — a
bright, sensible, diversified range of conversation in which keen-
ness of observation, breadth of view, courtesy, and kindness of
heart mingled to create an impression rarely forgotten.

Like all great merchants, Mr. Clapp was a man of well-in-
formed judgment and thoroughly master of the resources of the
commerce upon which he entered. He had a fine judgment of
men, and was liberal to those he employed. There was nothing
narrow in his conduct towards them. He was public-spirited and
generous to those in need. When a young shipmaster at Port au
Prince, where his own and the ship of Capt. Joseph Peabody of
Salem were lying, both men gave great assistance in aiding many
unfortunate whites to escape from massacre by the negro Revolu-
tionists, who pursued their horrid saturnalia on shore while a
British fleet blockaded the French flag from the coast.

Age gradually wore out his physical body, and he died in the
family mansion at Portland, April, 1848. Imposing funeral hon-

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 171

ors were paid to his remains, business was suspended in the town,
and his virtues and public spirit were notably commemorated.
His will had liberal bequests for philanthropic purposes. His
granddaughter, Miss Mary J. E. Clapp, daughter of Hon. A. W.
H. Clapp, resides now in the family home.

The children of Asa G. Clapp and Elizabeth Wendell Quincy
Clapp were :

1. Elizabeth Williams Clapp, born 1796, died 1873. Married Hon.
Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire. Their children were:

Charles Levi, Mary Elizabeth, Frances Anstriss, Virginia Lafay-
ette, Ellen Carolina De Quincy.

2. Frances Billings Clapp, who married first, Rev.G. W. Olney; sec-
ond, Samuel R. Brooks of New York; she had one child, Frances.

3. Charles Quincy Clapp, who lived in Portland, Me. He married
Octavia, daughter of General Wingate. Their children were Julia and
Georgiana.

4. Mary J. G. Clapp, who married Andrew L. Emerson. Their chil-
dren were Mary O. and Andrew L. Clapp.

5. Asa William Henry Clapp, of Portland, married Julia M., daugh-
ter of Gen. Henry A. S. Dearborn. They had one child, Mary J. Emer-
son. Mr. Clapp died March, 1891.

Mrs. Asa G. Clapp survived her husband till November 21,
1853, when she passed away at ninety. Mrs. Clapp retained that
charming grace and courtesy of manner, that ineffable goodness
of heart, and charity that had always distinguished her.

CHAPTER XXII.

CLAPP PEDIGREE.

THE first American ancestor was Deacon Thomas Clapp, who
came to America in 1633 and who was born in 1597. He
lived first at Dorchester and afterward at Scituate. He was
deacon there in 1647, and engaged in a theological dispute with
Rev. Charles Chauncey that lasted thirty -three years. He was
deputy to the General Court, Old Colony, in 1649. ^e died April
20, 1684, greatly respected.

Deacon Thomas Clapp, it is supposed, held the doctrine of
Rev. Mr. Lenthial, that all baptized persons should be admitted to
the church without further trial. With several others, he with-
drew from Dorchester to Old Colony to enjoy their liberty of be-
lief without any interference from Massachusetts divines. This
was about 1640. The difference with Chauncey was Chauncey's
claim to administer the Lord's Supper in the evening and to bap-
tize children and adults by plunging in the water. In 1654,
Chauncey had to agree not to inculcate these doctrines as the con-
dition on which he was made president of Harvard College. It
was about the time of his death that the reconciliation which
ended the dispute took place.

Deacon Thomas Clapp was the son of Richard Clapp of Eng-
land, and was born in Dorchester, England, 1597. The proba-
bihty is that Thomas and Nicholas, with their cousin Edward,
came over together, and John afterward. Capt. Roger Clapp ar-
rived in 1630. (See his memoirs.)

The wife of Deacon Thomas was Abigail. They had eight

children :

172

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 173

1. Thomas, second.

2. Increase, born May, 1640.

3. Samuel.

4. Eleazer, who was killed in the fight with Narragansett Indians
March 15, 1676, in Captain Pierce's company.

5. Elizabeth, who married Deacon Thomas King, April 20, 1669.

6. Prudence.

7. John, born 1658, died 1671, remarkable for piety and promise. A
memoir of him is published.

In 1662, Thomas Clapp, second, married Mary Fisher; she
was granddaughter of Deacon Joshua Fisher of Dedham, who was
elected Freeman in 1649, removed to Medford at its settlement,
and there was deacon selectman in 1653-55. ^^ died November
9, 1674.

Lieut. Joshua Fisher, son of Deacon Joshua, and father of
Mary, the wife of Thomas Clapp, was Freeman in 1640 ; deputy
in 1653, '62, '63, '64, '66, '6y, '68, '71, '72. His father's will
provides for Joshua, for his son John's children, for Vigilance, and
for Mary, wife of Thomas Clapp. Lieutenant Joshua's widow in
her will speaks of her sister Vigilance and of her daughter, Mary
Clapp. (Savage's Dictionary of New England Settlers.)

Lieutenant Joshua was state surveyor, a draughtsman and
mapmaker of great skill. He filled many local offices : selectman,
clerk of the court of writs, representative for twenty-one years ; a
member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, re-
ceived 1640, then a position of high honor. In 1643, the General
Court made him lieutenant of the military company in Dedham.

In 1664, he was one of the commissioners to lay out the
boundary between Plymouth colony and Massachusetts. For this
the General Court granted him three hundred acres of land. Al-
so he was on the commission to lay out the boundary between
Sudbury and Watertown, the town of Quinessipang, Dedham's
eight thousand acres near Hadley, also to lay out numerous grants
to individuals and to settle controversies, among others, Gover-
nor Endicott's lands on Ipswich River.

174 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

In May, 1772, he reported to the General Court a further sur-
vey of the line between Plymouth and Massachusetts, and in Oc-
tober, the General Court ordered his children to be paid for this
service. He had died between these dates.

His cousin, Daniel Fisher, son of Anthony Fisher, was a
man also full of public services and honors, distinguished even in
the arrest of Governor Andros, and his fierce opposition to the
rule of the prerogative party. He was an ancestor of the cele-
brated orator and statesman, Fisher Ames.

Samuel Clapp, son of Deacon Thomas Clapp in 1709 married
Elizabeth Fisher ; for second wife he married Bethiah Deane,
daughter of Deacon Samuel Deane and Sarah Deane of Taunton,
Mass. Samuel was representative to the General Court in 1733
and was selectman in 1732-35. He and his wife were admitted to
the church in 1733.

Their son was Capt. Abiel Clapp, born February 7, 1728, at
Mansfield. He married a daughter of Dr. Caswell. In 1749 he
was out in Major Leonard's troop, was a magistrate and captain of
the military company. He was accidentally shot at the head of
his own company. He left seven children, Abijah, Asa, Elkanah,
Samuel, Simeon, Bathsheba, Susan. Capt. Asa G. Clapp was
the second son of Abiel.

Samuel Clapp's wife, Bethiah Deane, was the daughter of
Deacon Samuel Deane and his wife Sarah. Her father was the
son of Deacon Joseph Deane, who died in 1729, and of his wife
Mary. Joseph was the son of Walter Deane and his wife, Elinor
Strong. Walter was made a Freeman of the Plymouth Colony
December 4, 1638. He and his brother John came over in 1637,
and were of the early settlers of Taunton. He was deputy to the
General Court in 1640, and in 1638 was one of the seven first
Freemen of Taunton. For twenty years he was one of the se-
lectmen of that town, and his name frequently occurs in its rec-
ords in connection with public affairs and land purchases. He
and his wife were living in 1693. The records of Taunton were,
unfortunately, long ago burnt.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY 175

Walter Deane came from Chard, about twelve miles from
Taunton, England. There are several important letters of his on
church and local affairs in print. His wife, Elinor Strong, was
the daughter of Richard Strong of Taunton, England, and came
over with her brother, Elder John Strong.

Capt. Abiel Clapp married a daughter of Dr. Caswell. The
" History of Norton " states : Dr. Samuel Caswell was the first
physician settled in the town, 1724. He was born October 6,
1695, and is supposed to be the son of John Caswell. The house
of the doctor is just within the line of Mansfield. He was prac-
tising there as early as 1726. In 1727-28 he married Ursula
White, the daughter of Deacon Nicholas White.

John Caswell, Sr., born July, 1656, married, in 1689, E iz
Hall. He died about 17 13, and left six children. He was a
petitioner for a separate church in 1707. His son John was a
lieutenant in the Cape Breton expedition of 1744-45.

Thomas Caswell, father of John, resided in Taunton, Mass.
In 1639 he is enrolled in the list of proprietors and householders.
Thomas is one of the grantees, 1662, in the North purchase of
Indian lands made by Captain Willett for the colony. In 1643 he
was in one of the military companies.

Elizabeth Hall, who married John Caswell, Sr., was baptized
October 28, 1670. She was daughter of Samuel Hall of Taunton
(born 1644, died 1690), who married Eliza White, daughter of
Nicholas White. She died in 1707. Samuel Hall was a large
landholder, interested in iron works. He was one of the six chil-
dren of George Hall of Taunton who came from Devonshire in
1636-37, and in 1639 was one of the forty-six original proprietors
of Taunton. He was Freeman in 1643 ; one of the supervising

council of the town, and selectman. He married Mary .

He died October, 1669, aged sixty-nine.

Deacon Nicholas White, third, father of Ursula White, was
born February 3, 1675. He settled in Mansfield, close to the Ime
between Taunton and the North purchase, at the place where
Charles Hall now lives. He married, June 2, 1703, Experience

176 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

King. They had nine children, of whom Ursula was one.
Deacon White was town treasurer, and selectman for eleven
years, representative to the General Court, first deacon of the
church at Mansfield, and is also referred to in the records as
"Lieutenant" White. He died September 2, 1743. His wife
was the daughter of Philip King of Taunton, who came here in
1680. He married December 9, 1673, and they had five children,
and lived at Taunton. (Deacon Nicholas White was the son of
Nicholas, second, and Ursula Macomber, who was the daughter of
Thomas Macomber of Mansiield. Hist. Gen. Reg., page 34, vol.
17, 1863.)

Nicholas White of Taunton was father of Nicholas second,
and was an early settler there. In 1666, there was a suit about his
sawmill stopping the passage of the schooling fish up the river,
and it was decided against him.

Experience King, wife of Deacon Nicholas White, third, was
probably the daughter of Philip King, who came over in 1680 and
removed to Taunton. There is a pamphlet on him and his de-
scendants. It is possible she was the daughter of Samuel King of
Weymouth and his wife Experience, who had a daughter Expe-
rience, baptized October 6, 1664, but it is not likely she would have
nine children born of this marrias:e.

CHAPTER XXIII.

VARIOUS OTHER PEDIGREES.

ELIZABETH WENDELL OUINCY, wife of the Hon. Asa
G. Clapp, baptized 1763, was the daughter of Dr. Jacob
Quincy, and EHzabeth WilHams Quincy, his wife, married
July 17, 1760.

John Williams, the father of Mrs. Quincy, was born in Great
Britain, 1707, came to New England, and August 19, 1732, mar-
ried Mary Pope, who was baptized August 30, 171 3. I know little
further about him save that his coat of arms hung in my grand-
father's house, and he was called Capt. John Williams.

Mary Pope was the daughter of Samuel Pope and Martha
Hawkins Robinson. Samuel Pope of Salem was baptized in 1656.
He married first. Exercise Smith; second, Martha Robinson, in
1709. Martha was baptized November 11, 1673. She had mar-
ried, first, Joseph Winslow ; her son Joseph was born February i,
1695. In 1702 she married William Bean and had children, Wil-
liam, born 1703 ; Caleb, 1704 ; thirdly she married Samuel Pope.
Their children were: Martha, born 1711; Mary, 1713, August
30 ; Susannah, and Abigail.

Samuel Pope died before 1735. He was the son of Joseph
Pope, who in 1634 came to this country in the "Mary and John,"
settled in Salem, where lands were granted him. The family be-
came under strong suspicion of Quakerism. His house remained
for four or five generations in his family. In that old house, Israel
Putnam, afterwards general in the Revolution, courted and mar-
ried one of his descendants, a granddaughter, Hannah, the daugh-
ter of Joseph Pope, second. It is stated that the wife of his son
Joseph was a Folger, aunt to Benjamin Franklin.

177

178 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

Joseph, Pope's will, dated September, 1666, but proved March,
1667, makes his wife Gertrude executrix, mentions the oldest
sons, Joseph and Benjamin, two youngest, Enos and Samuel ;
daughters Damaris Buffum and Hannah Pope. (Essex Hist. Col.
8, page 104.) He was a church member in 1636, a Freeman, had
lands granted to him, and with his wife Gertrude was before the
Court, 1658, for attending a Quaker meeting, and in 1662 they
were excommunicated for their adherence to the opinions of that
sect. In 1661, a royal mandate had forbid the colony from any
further proceedings against the Quakers. This church excom-
munication was the last blow.

Samuel Robinson and Martha Hawkins were married July 15,
1664. There is some labor and doubt in tracing this lady. There
were two families of Hawkins in Boston, Thomas H. and Captain
Thomas, but there has been shown me no evidence that she sprang
from either. Still another stock is shown by the records.

" Boston Births," page 24 — 1646, baptism of Martha, daugh-
ter of Job and Frances Hawkins. Is this the wife of Mr. Robin-
son .'' The book of baptisms discloses, 1658, that Job, son of Job
and Frances Hawkins, was born April 20, 1658. Savage's Diction-
ary says that he can trace Job and wife no further than the birth of
the child Martha. He adds that Job came over in the " Planter "
from London, aged fifteen, in the year 1635.

Samuel Robinson was the son of William Robinson, of Salem,
who was a member of the first church before 1640. His will is
dated February 9, 1676-77 ; proved September, 1678 ; the wife not
mentioned and probably dead. He makes his sons Samuel and
John executors ; speaks of his eldest son Joseph as being rich in
the Barbadoes ; gives him twelve pounds if he comes in person to
claim it. He had two other children, Hester, born March 28,
1654; Timothy, born February 28, 1644. I have not looked
carefully for details. Some of his descendants claim that he was
son of the celebrated Leyden minister, but are probably wrong.
Some of his descendants were brave in the public service. One is
claimed to have invented and built the first schooner. (History of
Gloucester.)

CHAPTER XXIV.,

PEDIGREES OF THE QUINCYS.

Major Abraham Staats — Katherine Jochemse, 1642.

I
Elizabeth Staats — Johannes | Wendell

Abraham Wendell — Katharine | de Kay

Elizabeth Wendell — Edmund Quiucy

I
Dr. Jacob Quincy — Elizabeth Williams

Evert Jans Wendell— Susannah

de Trieux , |
' Phillip de Trieux.

I
Elizabeth Wendell Quincy

married AsaG. Clapp

Teunis de Kay— Helena Van Brugh
Jacob Teunis de Kay— |

Johannes Van Brugh— Catherine Roeloff

Edmund
Edmund

Quincy — Dorothy Flynt
I

Anneke Jans Roeloft'

Quincy — Elizabeth Gookin

Edmund Quincy— Judith Pares
1632

I
Rev. Joshua Flynt — Esther Willett

Gen. Daniel Gookin — Mary Dolling.
1630

Rev. Henry Flynt — Margery Hoare
1635 Chas. Hoare | of Glocester
(widow came here)

Capt. Tho.s. Willett— Mary Brown,
1629

I

Mr. John Brown — Dorothy

(Old Colony)

John Williams — Martha Pope

I

Samuel Pope— Martha Robmson

I I

Joseph Pope, 1634

Samuel Robinson — Martha Hawkins

William Robinson, 1637
(The dates are when they came to this country.)

179

180 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Edmund Ouincy, fourth, was born June 1 3, 1703, graduated from
Harvard College in 1722, married to Elizabeth Wendell in 1725,
died July 17, 1785, aged eighty-three. After withdrawing from
Boston and business he lived on his ancestral estate in Braintree,
where he was an active magistrate. He was a man of letters and a
patriot of earnest and unselfish devotion to the cause of liberty.
His house in Boston was situated on Summer street, opposite
Trinity Church, with a courtyard and stable, and his lot extended
back to that of his brother Josiah, who lived on Washington street
and Central Court. In the Probate Records I find that he was
one of the sureties on the administrators' bond of the estate of his
father-in-law, Abraham Wendell, who died August 5, 1735. In
1742 is another administration on one Abraham Wendell, possibly
the son of the first. Samuel Sturgis was also one of the sureties.
John, Jacob and Jacob Wendell, Jr., were the administrators.

The children of Edmund and Elizabeth Wendell Ouincy
were :

1. Edmund, born February 5, 1726; married Anne, daughter of Ellis
Husk of Portsmouth, N. H., from whom are descended the Sheafes, Cush-
ings and Goulds.

2. Henry, born January 20, 1726-27, married first, Mary, daughter of
William Salter. Their daughter married Dr. Green of Warwick, R. I.
There were other children. Second, Eunice Newell. December 31, 1759,
and their daughter was Eunice de Valnais.

3. Abraham, born July, 1728; drowned.

4. Elizabeth, born October 19, 1729; married Samuel Sewell of Bos-
ton; died February 15, 1770.

5. Catherine, born 1733; died unmarried.

6. Jacob, baptized October 2, 1734.

7. Dorothy, born 1735, died in infancy.

8. Sarah, born October 2, 1736; married Gen. William Greenleaf of
Massachusetts, a native of Lancaster. The Gardners and Greenoughs are
their descendants.

9. Esther, born November 26, 1738; married 1763, Jonathan Sewell,
the last royal attorney-general of the provinces, afterwards a refugee. She
was celebrated for her wit, beauty and vivacity. She died in 1810. The
Sewells of Quebec and Nova Scotia descend from her.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 181

10. Dorothy, born May lo, 1747, married first, John Hancock,
signer of the Declaration of Independence and first governor of Massa-
chusetts. Their two children died young. After Hancock's death, she
married in 1796, Capt. James Scott. Hancock died October 8, 1793.
When about eight years old, with Rev. Mr. Olney and his daughter, my
cousin, I visited her and remained over Sunday. I have a vivid recollec-
tion of her and her stately surroundings. She died February 3, 1830.

(6.) Dr. Jacob Ouincy, her brother, was a graduate of Harvard in 1753,
and in the muster roll of the field and staff officers of his Majesty's service,
on the expedition lo Crown Point, under the command of Joseph Dwight,
Charles Pynchon was surgeon and Jacob Ouincy surgeon's mate. The his-
tory of Braintree also states that he practiced medicine there for a short
time. The muster roll gives the term of service from February 7, 1756, to
December 18, 1756, and is signed Boston. (Mass. Records, vol. 95,
pages 13, 14.)

Joseph Dwight signed this, errors excepted, February 23,
1757. He does not appear to have been paid off at the date of Col-
onel Dwight's return of the muster roll ; possibly he served an-
other campaign. In the muster roll of this regiment I notice a
number of Indian names, probably Stockbridge Indians.

The province of Massachusetts during the Seven Years' War,
or the French War from 1756 to 1762, maintained two armed ves-
sels, " The Massachusetts," and, later, " King George," at her own
expense, also a scow that was captured. These were the " Coun-
tries' Ships," in contradistinction from the royal navy. Examin-
ing the Mass. Records, vol. 97, page 319, there is a muster roll of
the ship "King George, Benj. Hallowell, Jr., Captain." Here I
find Jacob Quincy, surgeon, on the roll. Dr. Jacob entered the
service July 24; the term was to November 17. The endorse-
ment on the muster roll is that it is the muster roll of the " King
George" from November, 1758, to November 20, 1759.

Vol. 2, page 338, Williamson's "History of Maine" states
that in 1759 the "King George" was at Bagaduce, Penobscot,
with the troops, erecting Fort Pownal. That winter she convoyed
to Louisburg and cruised to protect commerce from privateers.
In August, 1758, Governor Pownal, in the "King George" and
in company with " The Massachusetts," took forces and supplies

182 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

to relieve the fort at St. George, which was threatened. The
enemy, four hundred Indians and French, arrived thirty-six hours
after the men-of-war sailed. This was the last Indian foray into
Maine.

Vol. 3, Province Laws, page 1064, et scq.^ contains the legis-
lation about the " King George." She appears to have been in
commission in 1757-58-59. A very quaint statute, passed that
spring, declared that the " King George " had taken many prizes,
and the officers and crew had kept the prize money in addition to
their pay, but hereafter they would have to support all the pris-
oners they took, except privateers. The old Norsemen sent
their troublesome prisoners " home by water," that is, made them
walk the plank. This statute savors of atavism. Guadaloupe
was taken April 27, 1759, by Admiral Moore and General Barring-
ton, an expedition which sailed from Boston.

My grandmother, Elizabeth Wendell Clapp, says of her
father, Dr. Jacob Quincy, that he studied with Dr. Pynchon, and
before he was twenty-five went into the army with Dr. Pynchon
as surgeon's mate, serving there two years. She had for many
years her father's commission, which her mother had given to
her. Her father, she further stated, went in a government vessel,
as surgeon, to the West Indies, before his marriage. The ship
was called the " Countries' Ship." On his return he married and
went again to the West Indies, where he died after a year's ab-
sence from home. When he was surgeon it was before the Revo-
lutionary War. Mrs. Henry Dearborn said she had heard of Dr.
Pynchon as a distinguished surgeon and a literary man.

I have a recollection of Dr. Quincy's widow, my great-grand-
mother, when I was six or seven years old. She lived in Portland,
Me., and her portrait, which I have, presents her much younger.
She was ninety when I knew her, and very stout. She had re-
married after Dr. Quincy's death and was again a widow. There
were no children of the second marriage.

Dr. Quincy formed some planting enterprises in the West
Indies or Demarara, but his sudden death, June 15, 1773, closed

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 183

his career. My grandmother, when I became a lawyer, talked to
me about her father, particularly on the subject of an estate in
Demarara which should have come to the family but which she be-
lieved was diverted by the chicanery of some agent. I was never
much interested, though I inferred the doctor must have spent
much time following up his enterprise. Mrs. Clapp's husband
had his own fortune, and was so wealthy he did not want any
more money to build up a separate estate for his wife.

My interest was more in the Revolution. I remember asking
her about the Boston Massacre, the destruction of the tea, and the
battle of Bunker Hill. She told me that they lived on King
Street. (I calculated it on the site where now is the Merchant's
Bank.) She said that shortly after dark, two men with their faces
blackened and their shirts outside knocked at the door and re-
quested that none of the family would go out into the street until
after nine o'clock ; assent was given. Probably other houses were
visited in the same way. Thus the coast was clear of witnesses
from the old State House to Long Wharf, and the Teatotallers
worked without observation. I asked if they knew those two dis-
guised men, and she answered they thought one of them was
apprentice to a baker a few doors off. As to Bunker Hill, I could
coax a little out of her until she would recollect a feminine point
of honor and say, " But I was very young then and can't remem-
ber." She was at least a dozen years old. It was my fault that I
obtained so little from her of traditionary details. I had no in-
terest in genealogy, indeed, rather opposed to it on democratic
principles, a great deal of which, years afterwards, came back to
memory and was verified by me.

The children of Dr. Jacob Ouincy and Elizabeth Williams
Quincy were :

Jacob.

Elizabeth Wendell, married Asa Clapp.

Mary.

Abraham Howard.
5- John Williams.
6. Samuel Maverick.

184 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Elizabeth Wendell Ouincy and Asa Clapp's children were :

Elizabeth Williams, married Judge Levi Woodbury, governor,
senator, secretary of the navy, secretary of the treasury, justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States.

Charles Quincy, who married Octavia, daughter of General
Wingate of Bath, Me. They had two daughters, Julia, who mar-
ried D. B. Carroll, mayor of Portland, and Georgiana, who married
Winthrop G. Ray.

Frances Billings, who married, first. Rev. G. W. Olney and
had one daughter, Frances, who married Maj. Gardner Frye ; sec-
ondly, Frances Billings married Samuel Brooks of New York. Her
daughter, Frances Frye, had two sons, Alfred B. and George O.

Asa William Henry, who married Julia, daughter of Gen. H.
A. S. Dearborn of Roxbury, Mass. Mr. Asa W. H. Clapp repre-
sented his district in Congress, 1847, and has been director in
many public institutions. They had one daughter, Mary J. Emer-
son. He died in March, 1891.

Mary J., who married Andrew L. Emerson, first mayor of
Portland, Me. They had two children, Edward, who took the
name of Andrew L. Clapp, and Mary, who married Horace Brooks
of New York. The former had two sons.

The children of Mary Emerson and Horace Brooks were:

William.

Minna, who married General Von Funcke, of the Prussian army.

Isabella, who married Dr. Herbert.

Clarence, and

Emerson.

Elizabeth Williams Clapp Woodbury and Gov. Levi Wood-
bury had five children :

I. Charles Levi Woodbury, who has remained a bachelor
and has no story to tell here. A lawyer and a student of history and
philosophy. The current books of the day on biography of living
men have rough sketches of him. He has been United States at-
torney for Massachusetts, member of the legislature, delegate to
the national conventions from New Hampshire and Massachu-

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 185

setts ; refused a diplomatic appointment from President Pierce,
and is an earnest Free Mason. He was three years deputy grand
master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and for over a dozen
years sovereign lieutenant grand commander of the Scottish Rite
for the northern jurisdiction of the United States. He is author
of numerous orations, speeches and pamphlets on political, masonic
and historic matters ; is alive at this present writing, January 15,
1894, and unwilling to say much about himself.

(He died July i, 1898, and his work has been carried on in
the lines he would have laid, by his sister, Ellen C. D. O. Wood-
bury.)

2. Mary Elizabeth, married Judge Montgomery Blair of St.
Louis, Mo., subsequently of Montgomery County, Maryland.

Judge Blair was postmaster-general under President Lincoln,
and had been solicitor of the land office under President Pierce.
He was a lawyer of ability and distinction. He resided at Falk-
land, Montgomery County, Md., near his father, the Hon. Francis
P. Blair, celebrated as editor of TJie Globe and the personal friend
of President Jackson. Judge Blair died at Washington, D. C, and
was buried with his wife at Rock Creek Church cemetery. Their
children were :

Woodbury, unmarried.

Minna, married Dr. S. O. Richey of Washington, D. C.

Maria, died young.

Gist, unmarried.

Montgomery, who married Edith Draper, daughter of Gen-
eral Draper of Hopedale, Mass., and ambassador to Italy.

3. Frances Anstriss Woodbury, married Archibald Lowery,
Esq., of New York, who afterward removed to Washington, D. C.
They had children :

Woodbury, unmarried.

Virginia, who married Joseph Brunetti, Duke of Arcos,
Spanish minister to Mexico, and after the Spanish War, minister
to the United States.

4. Virginia Lafayette Woodbury, married Captain Gustavus
Vasa Fox, United States navy. They had no children.

186 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

Mr. Fox engaged in the pioneer steam service of the United
States mercantile, commanding the " Baltic," the " George Law"
and various other of the best ships on the Liverpool and on the
Panama and Nicaragua routes, at the same time retaining his rank
in the navy, where he had distinguished himself in the China
seas and in the Mexican War. He resigned from the navy, and
after his marriage, took charge of the Bay State mills at Lawrence,
and when the war broke out in i860 he planned an expedition to
relieve Fort Sumter. He was then made assistant secretary of
the navy under Gideon Wells, and had substantially the charge
of the professional navy matters during the war.

He was sent special envoy to Russia to carry resolutions con-
gratulating the Emperor Alexander, second, on his escape from
assassination. He was received with exuberant welcome. He
visited other naval European powers, and had large hospitality ex-
tended him. There would be much space required to write his
labors.

He resumed manufactures after the peace, directing the Mid-
dlesex Mills, and then, as partner, was in the commission house of
Mudge, Sawyer & Co.; retiring from business he and his wife
passed winters south and in Bahama. He died in New York
October 29, 1883, and was buried in Rock Creek Church ceme-
tery, near Washington.

5. Ellen Carolina de Ouincy Woodbury, the youngest daugh-
ter and child of Hon. Levi Woodbury and his wife, is unmarried.

CHAPTER XXV.

EDMUND QUINCY, FOURTH.

TO RETURN to Edmund Ouincy, fourth. A few glimpses
of the social life of that time are within reach. (New Eng.
Hist, and Gen. Reg., January, 1870, page 70.)

One Capt. Francis Goelette arrived at Boston in the Tartus
galley, September 29, 1750, consigned to Capt. John Wendell.
He dined Sunday, with his consignee, a family party, including
Miss Betsy, Miss Jenny Wendell, Miss Ouincy, Mr. Wendell and
family and a few others.

The gay captain gives a graphic account of a month's gayety
under the auspices of this family : October 2, a dinner of twenty
couples at Mr. Richardson's in Cambridge ; he drove Miss Jenny
Wendell out ; Miss Ouincy was there. They danced minuets and
country dances all the afternoon and drove home at dusk. On
another occasion, he drives out with a party to Stoughton, and vis-
ited Edmund Ouincy's country house on their return. This jour-
nal gives a sparkling picture of life in Boston at that time amoBg
the wealthy citizens. October 13 the party in chaises make an
excursion through Milton and Stoughton ; then dine at Glover's.
From there at the request of Mr. Edmund Ouincy they drive out
to his house in Milton (it should be Braintree). The captain de-
scribes the house and grounds, with the brook well stocked with
silver eels. " We caught a parcell and carried them into the
house and had them dressed for supper ; a beautiful pleasure gar-
den adjoins the house." They returned in the evening to Boston.

As well as I can glean from the Salisbury memorial and
other notices of him, Mr. Ouincy was a gentleman of culture and

187

188 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

refinement, accomplished, lived in the generous habit of the lead-
ing men of the day. His daughters were remarkable for wit,
spirit, and beauty, and naturally made his home attractive. The
memory of their graces and accomplishments floats down tradi-
tionally to our own day, imparting some of their luster on the four
generations of descendants.

I have alluded to my conversation with Dorothy Ouincy, the
wife of John Hancock, when she was married a second time and
was Madam Scott, within a few years of her death. What revolu-
tions have taken place within our joint lives ! She, her husband,
her relatives, almost bone and blood of the Revolution, but in my
eyesight, rather than hers, the era of the railroad, steamboat, elec-
tricity, telegraph, photography, and the varied uses of coal and
steam in the arts have been unfolded, step by step, until the cars
run on the streets and the electric light mocks the setting sun.

In Edmund Quincy's life of Josiah Ouincy, he describes an
interesting event when Edmund Ouincy, Edmund Jackson and
Josiah Ouincy were business partners, the capture in 1748 of the
" Jesus Maria and Joseph," a register ship from Havana to Cadiz,
twenty-six guns, one hundred and ten men, by a letter of marque,
the " Betheil," of thirty-seven men, fourteen guns and six Quaker
guns (wooden) belonging to the firm. The cargo included one
hundred and twenty-one chests of silver and two of gold, besides
cochineal and other valuable cargo. The specie was deposited in
Col. Josiah Quincy's wine-cellar, and a guard maintained while it
remained.

The " Betheil " was named after Slingsley Betheil, a merchant
of London, afterwards its lord mayor, probably interested in the
vessel. A descendant of his was elevated to the peerage as Lord
Westbury, a law lord. England was at this time at war with
France and Spain, and the " Betheil," when it made its capture,
had just passed the straits bound west. Her captain's name was
Freeman.

When Mr. Quincy returned to the homestead at Braintree,
the effervescence of life was nearly spent, he was reaching sev-

OF THE WOODBUEY FAMILY. 189

enty. The cares and duties of a patriot were absorbing the
younger and fresher minds of the colonists, of whom none were
more ardent than this Nestor of their circle; Josiah, his brother, his
cousins of that ilk, John Adams, his neighbor and constant visitor,
John Hancock, another neighbor who found that not only politics
but a more agreeable tyranny than George the Third's ruled in
these quaint parlors, beside those boxwood hedges.

As Peter Bustler said to me when he first showed me this
old parlor and its punch bowl, " Here, sir, Sam Adams, John
Adams, Edmund Quincy and John Hancock drank their punch
and plotted treason." When we were beside the boxwood hedges,
he said: "Here is where Dorothy Quincy hung her laces to
dry." I believed him, and tore off a sprig for memory.

When the Revolution broke out, Judge Quincy was over sev-
enty and could only get away from the British army in Boston and
write wise and stirring letters to John Hancock and the other
active and sagacious leaders of the injured colonies.

Dorothy's brother, Dr. Jacob, was dead before the crisis.
She had married John Hancock when a price was set on his head
by the British government. At Philadelphia, where he was chair-
man of or president of the convention, she was his active secre-
tary, and gave unsparingly of her energies to the service of the in-
cipient republic.

Just here let me add an account of her there, written in a let-
ter to his wife (her cousin) by John Adams, November 4, 1775,
from Philadelphia :

" Two pair of colors belonging to the seventh regiment were
brought here last night from Chambly and hung up in Mrs. Han-
cock's chamber with great splendor and eloquence. The lady
sends her compliments and good wishes. Among a hundred men
almost at this house, she lives and behaves with modesty, decency,
dignity and discretion, I assure you. Her behaviour is easy and
genteel. She avoids talking upon politics. In large and mixed
company, she is usually silent as a lady ought to be.

190 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

" But whether her eyes are so penetrating and her attention
so quick to the words, gestures, looks, sentiments, &c., of the
company as yours would be, saucy as you are in this way, I won't
say."

Quite an embryo diplomat in putting it, but his testimony is
unimpeachable.

The history of the town of Braintree and the Braintree rec-
ords bear witness to much local activity and service, demonstrat-
ing the high esteem in which he was held but which it is unnec-
essary to particularize.

In 1768 he took some of the depositions in the contest over
the sloop " Liberty " of John Hancock's. In this year he was
one of the committee to encourage the use and consumption of all
articles manufactured in the British colonies and non-importation
of the like under the new revenue laws. In 1770, he was one of
the board of justices who examined and committed Richardson for
shooting the boys, Gore and Schneider. He appears as one of
the board of justices in 1767 and 1773. (Province Laws, vol. 5,
page 350.)

He took one of the affidavits for the town in relation to the
Boston Massacre. In the Massachusetts Archives, vol. 238, page
1 701. an order is found of the Court of General Sessions of the
Peace, held at Boston, on the first Tuesday of October, 1781, to
pay him for his attendance as one of the justices of the court in
general sessions in April, 1781, and October, 1781, attested by
" Ezek Price, clerk," which shows that he long served the com-
monwealth in this judicial dignity.

Mr. Quincy was several times elected a magistrate for seven
years, and in 1771 was created justice of the peace and quorum,
acting on the court of sessions for the county, a court of records,
as one of its justices. In a manuscript book of his, now in the
Massachusetts Historical Society and presented by Miss Belknap,
daughter of Jeremy Belknap, Esq., is quite a docket of civil cases
that were before him and a collection of common law forms for
declarations and pleadings. But Boston soon became too hot for

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 191

him and he issued no more writs in the name of Kins; Geors-e.
Invigorated by the air of freedom, he was soon writing from Lan-
caster to John Hancock, devoting his ripe energies to the cause of
liberty and Colonial reunion.

Whoever reads Mrs. Adams's letters will observe that Brain-
tree was in dangerous proximity to the British fleet. In August,
the 23d, 1775, the General Court removed all civil and military
ofifices then in commission, and authorized all commissioned since
July to take an oath of office and execute their functions.

Mr. Ouincy was reappointed August 24, 1775, and coniirmed
as justice of the peace and quorum for Suffolk ; and on Septem-
ber 6 John Hancock, John Adams and Samuel Adams also were
given the like authority under the new commonwealth — a good-
ly company. Norton Ouincy, his cousin, was included, and Wil-
liam Greenleaf made sheriff. In an index of " Civil Officers in the
County of Suffolk," " Edmund Quincy, Esq., justice of the Court
of Common Pleas, Oct. 17, 1 78 1 " appears. This seat on the
bench he held until his death. (Records of that date, vol. 27,
page 138.)

He was made a Mason in the first lodge of Boston in 1749,
and subsequently appears in the " masters' lodge." His name oc-
curs on the Grand Lodge records, July 14, 1758, and also at the
June and December festivals in 1759. December 27, 1759, ^^ is
recorded as Grand Secretary /;v tern. In July, 1760, he was sen-
ior warden of the first lodge. In January, 1760, he represented
the second lodge in Grand Lodge, and January 2, 1761, he was
senior warden of the second lodge. This was in St. John's Grand
Lodge. He is on the records as Grand Secretary from December
27, 1760, until May 2, 1766, inclusive. In 1769, at a festival held
at the " Bunch of Grapes," Edmund Quincy, Jr., is designated as
" Post Grand ofificer." In 1766, he was one of a committee to re-
ply to a letter from St. Andrew's Lodge. He was known through
life as Edmund Ouincy, Jr., to distinguish him from his father and
then from his son.

192 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

John Rowe's dairy mentions him as present at festivals in
1764-65-66-69, and 1773, when on the 27th of December he is on
record at the festival of St. John in the Grand Lodge. This was
after his arrival from England, noted m the Evening Post, Bos-
ton, December [3, 1773: "Last evening, arrived Captain An-
gers in another brig from the same place (London) neither of them
with any tea on board. In the latter, Captains Robson and
Rogers, Mr. Edmund Ouincy, Mr. John Bromfield and several
others." (New Eng. Gen. Reg., 1885, page 114.)

Many letters of his have been published in the " Family
Memorials " by the Salisburys, vol. 2, page 352 :

I, Braintree, to his son-in-law Sewell, March 7, 1776; 2, to
his son Edmund, political and argumentative, March i, 1775; 3,
to his son Edmund, about Lexington fight. May 19, 1775 ; 4, Lan-
caster, a French fleet coming, March 8, 1776 ; 5, March 10, 1776 ;
6, May 27, 1776 ; 7, June 10, 1776 ; 8, June 18, 1776 ; 9, June 24,
1776 ; 10, July 1 1, 1776, in which is a copy of the Declaration of
Independence; 11, July 22, 1776; 12, August 12, 1776; 13,
October 6, 1776; 14, November 14, 1776; 15, May 10, 1777; 16,
December 10, 1777; 17, April 16, 1777; 18, November 20, 1777.

Several letters have been published in the New England Gen-
ealogical and Historical Register, vol. 11, page 34; a letter to his
daughter Kate, dated Lancaster, July 22, 1775, about French
books and the De Valnaies ; on page 165 is another, dated from
Lancaster, July 22, 1775, to his dear daughter Dolly. In this he
prophesies as to the future of the colonies. A letter from John
Hancock to his wife, dated Yorktown, October 18, 1777, is given
in vol. 12, page 106. Another from Hancock is given on page
316, to his wife, dated "Tavern, called Log Goal in New Jersey,
270 miles from Boston, Sunday, 12 o'clock, June 14, 1778." An-
other letter from Edmund Ouincy to his daughter Dolly, dated
from Lancaster, Mass., March 26, 1776, is in vol. 13, page 231,
patriotic but long. In vol. 15 there is one to Mrs. Hancock, con-
gratulating her on the courage of her son in being inoculated.
This is dated September 25, 1783.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 193

His letters show great breadth of thought, the progress of
Colonial self-assertion and the sincerest patriotism. They con-
tain a spirit of prophecy as to the future of the ideas of liberty and
independence which now seems a matter of wonder.

In a letter from Lancaster, July 22, 1775, to his daughter
Dolly (Mrs. Hancock), after some remarks on Mr. Hancock's
gout at Philadelphia, he proceeds :

" It seems to me that it is not improbable the present Grand
Council of American safety, convened in the city of Philadelphia,
may have the lasting honor of being recorded in the present and
future annals of the American and European World as the remark-
able instrument in the hands of ye Allwise Governor of the Uni-
verse not only of confirming and establishing the liberty of Amer-
ica and Britain but likewise of flashing such palpable light upon
the subjects of other kingdoms and states of Europe, as gradually
in conjunction with other means may become irresistible, under
the direction of Heaven, in breaking ye bands and bursting ye
cords asunder by which those people have been so long held of
their despotic and tyrannical masters ; their cries, I doubt not,
have long since reached the throne of the King of Kings and Lord
of Lords to whom we are told, vengeance belongs and he will not
tarry." The letter contains much family news.

Among the Belknap papers, presented by Miss Belknap to the
Massachusetts Historical Society, is the so-called letter book of
Edmund Ouincy. I curiously examined this, January 12, 1894.
It is an omnium, comprising legal docket of 1772-73-74, and forms ;
some remarks on agriculture, a few letters of business, 1728-29,
and on hemp husbandry, and, later, used as a letter book. In one
letter he remarks he had been a year in Lancaster, I presume on
account of the British occupation of Boston. The letters of
Revolutionary time which have not been published as far as I
know are :

I, to Hon. John Hancock, November 26, 1775 ; 2, to his
son Edmund, December 3, 1775 ; 3, to Hon. John Hancock, Decem-
ber 12, 1775 ; 4, to his daughter Dolly, February 9, 1776; 5, to

194: GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Hon. J. Warren, speaker, March 14, 1776; 6, to Hon. J. Hancock,
March 18, 1776; 7, to Hon. J. Hancock, March 25, 1776; 8, to
his daughter, Mrs. Hancock, May 24, 1776 ; 9, to Hon. J. Hancock,
May 24, 1776.

Mr. Ouincy wrote in this book, a fine, small hand, beautiful
but difficult to read for other than young eyes, yet he was over
seventy when he wrote these copies. The current news and spec-
ulation which he records are interesting and the letters show he
never faltered in devotion to the brilliant idea of liberty that led
him on and his associates.

The glorious patriotism recorded of other members of the
family shows their loyalty to liberty : Josiah Quincy, who fired
the provincial soul and died on his return from England at the ap-
proach of hostilities, within sight of his native land, longing for an
hour with Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren to communicate his
counsels.

Writers have frequently discoursed of the hospitable old man-
sion where John Adams, who married his kinswoman, John Han-
cock and others of the stern and fiery patriots hatched their plans
for liberty over a bowl of punch and bottle of south side Madeira,
and yearned for its glorious dawn.

Official pride turns many heads, and one son-in-law, Jonathan
Sewell, and his nephew, bent in homage to royal authority, as
some think, because the scheme of liberty seemed an absolutely
chimerical contest with the might of England's crown. Several of
the letters show how the vials of his indignation were poured on
their heads. Who trusted in King George lost ; who trusted in
the people won the glorious heritage.

Jonathan Sewell became judge of admiralty in Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick; he died, 1796, at St. John, N. B. His
wife, Esther, the fourth daughter of Edmund Ouincy, distinguished
for beauty and sprightly wit, died in Montreal in 1810. Jonathan,
the elder of their two sons, became chief justice of Lower Canada,
and Stephen, the solicitor general of the province.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 195

A sketch of the Ouincy home in Boston is given in an eulogy
on William Greenleaf of Braintree, delivered by Rev. Mr. Lunt
in 1854, that yields some light. Mr. Greenleaf owned the
old Quincy homestead and was of the old stock, descended
from Sarah Quincy, who was born in 1736, and married General
Greenleaf of Lancaster. Mr. Lunt says: The house "was sold
by Edmund Quincy in 1768. From that time until it was pur-
chased by Moses Black, Esq., it was the property and residence of
Mr. Alleyn, a man of fortune from the West Indies. From Mr,
Black's representatives it passed into the possession of the late
Daniel Greenleaf, Esq., and was occupied by him until his death
in 1853."

" Mr. Quincy was a skillful and progressive cultivator. From
his farm notebook, 1754, we learn that Dr. Franklin sent him
grape cuttings from Philadelphia. The doctor was a great friend
of Col. Josiah Quincy and also frequently visited Edmund Quincy
of Braintree. The ample barns and offices extant when I first vis-
ited at the old homestead, a century after his death, showed in
their admirable arrangement that a farmer in fact had lived there.

" The history of the homestead has been frequently written
and photographs protect its memory from innovation. It is
thought that some part of the original structure of 1634 is in the
building. In 1685, Mr. Quincy built another house and bequeathed
the old house to his son, Edmund third, who died in 1738.

" According to tradition, Judge Quincy built what is now the
front part of the mansion in the early part of the last century.
He made the gravel walk before the door, planted the mulberry
trees still bearing fruit and the sturdy row of box. He also built
on the north end of the house a suite of apartments with a study
below and a sleeping room above for the use of his eccentric
brother-in-law which are still known as Tutor Flynt's rooms. The
latter used to walk from Cambridge on Saturday, let himself in by
a private door and remain there until his duties called him back to
college.

196 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

"Judge Ouincy, third, at his death, divided his landed prop-
erty, giving his mansion house and farm to his eldest son Ed-
mund fourth, and his lower farm to his son Josiah. The latter is
now the property of the Hon. Josiah Ouincy, Sr., and the former
is the estate belonging to the heirs of the Hon. Thos. Greenleaf."
(Oration of the Rev. Mr. Lunt.)

CHAPTER XXVI.

WENDELL.

ELIZABETH WENDELL, wife of Edmund Quincy, fourth,
was of Dutch descent. Her father was Abraham Wendell
and her mother Katrina de Kay. She was baptized August
20, 1704, and married Judge Edmund Quincy April 15, 1725.

Details as to her genealogy are found in " Family Memorials "
by the Salisburys, the "Wendell" book; also in the New Eng-
land Historical and Genealogical Register and other books on the
early settlers of Albany, N. Y. It will be clearer to trace down
the Wendells and their wives to Abraham,

1. Evarts Jans Wendell was born in 1615, in Embden, East Fries-
land. In 1640 he came to New Amsterdam, where he resided five years,
then removed to Fort Orange (Albany") . In 1700 he resided on what is
now the west corner of James and State streets. He filled many offices of
civic trusts. In 1656 he was the ruling elder of the Dutch Reformed church,
and in 1660 and 1661, was a magistrate of the burgh. He married in 1644,
July 31, Susannah de Trieux, third daughter of Philip de Trieux, " Marshall
of New Netherlands," and of his wife Susannah. The ceremony was per-
formed in the Reformed Protestant Dutch church of New Amsterdam, by
the Domine Everhardus Bogardus. They had children: Thomas, Abra-
ham, Elsje, Johannes, Diewer, Hieronymus, Philip and Evert. His wife
Susannah died about 1660. He had a second wife in 1663, Maritze Abra-
ham Vosburg, who bore him three children, Isaac, Susannah, Diewertje.
At her death he married a third wife, Ariantje, by whom he had no chil-
dren. He died in 1709, aged ninety-four.

2. Johannes Wendell, son of Evarts Jans Wendell and his wife, Su-
sannah de Trieux, was baptized February 2, 1649, ^"^ married, first, Ma-
ritie Jillise Meyer; second, Elizabeth Staats, daughter of Maj. Abraham
Staats and Katrina Jochemse Staats of Rensselaerswyck, from whom we are
descended. Captain Wendell had two children by his first wife : Elsie,

197

198 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

who married A. Staats, Jr. ; Martie, who married J. J. Outhout of Albany.
By his second wife he had nine children :

1. Abraham, baptized December 27, 1678, the heir at law, who mar-
ried, May 15, 1702, Katrina de Kay of New York.

2. Susannah, who married Jabobus Davitse Schuyler of Albany.

3. Catalintje, who married the same gentleman.

4. Elizabeth, who married Johannes Ten Broeck.

5. Johannes, born March 6, 1684, who married Elizabeth Walters of
Albany.

6. Ephraim, born 1685, who married Anna .

7. Isaac, baptized 1687, who married Catalyna Van Dyck.

8. Sarah, baptized 1687.

9. Jacob, born August 5, 1691, who removed to Boston, and married
Sarah Oliver of Cambridge.

Captain Wendell was a landholder and man of influence. In
1684 he was a magistrate. In 1685 he was captain in Colonial
service. In 1686, alderman of Albany, and in 1690, one of the
commissioners to make a treaty with the Five Nations and super-
intend the defense of Albany. His wife survived him and mar-
ried Capt. Johannes Schuyler, having four children from this mar-
riage. She was the grandmother of Gen. Philip Schuyler of the
Revolution and of the wife of Edmund Ouincy, fourth.

Captain Wendell was a merchant, the most prominent of the
si.x brothers. Having married a daughter of Dr. Abraham Staats,
he was connected with some of the leading men of the province,
and in politics was a Leislerian. (Colonial New York, vol. i, page
376.) " In October, 1690, Leisler superseded Peter Schuyler as
mayor of Albany and appointed Capt. Johannes Wendell to the
place." Broadhead's " History of New York," i, page 439, says
that Wendell, who had long been a magistrate, was appointed,
1686, by Governor Dongan, one of the aldermen, having previ-
ously been a captain of infantry at Albany. In 1690, Leisler
appointed him to superintend matters at Albany.

The contention between the Leisler party and part of the
Dutch as to the government, on the accession of William and
Mary, was very bitter. Captain Wendell sided with the Leisler
faction. The subsequent execution of Liesler aggravated the

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 199

party strife, which lasted with varying fortunes through many ad-
ministrations and many years, several governors inclining to them.

On January 26, 1683, four Mohawk sachems appeared before
the authorities of Albany and declared they had sold to Cornelius
Van Dyck, Jan Jansen Bleecker, Peter Phillipse Schuyler and
Johannes Wendel a certain parcel of land called Ochserantogue,
otherwise Sarachtogie. In 1684, November 4, Governor Dongan
granted a patent for this tract as described to Cornelius Van Dyck,
Jan Janson Bleecker, Peter Phillipse Schuyler, Johannes Wendel,
Dirk Wessels, David Schuyler, and D. Livingstone, for which they
were to pay an annual rent of twenty bushels of wheat to the
crown. The land was twenty-two miles, north and south, and
twelve miles, east and west.

In 1685, the patentees divided it into seven lots of equal value
and Lot No. 4 fell to Johannes Wendel and became his own. He
died in 1691 and willed it to his son, Abraham Wendel, who in
1702, for a consideration, conveyed it to Johannes Schuyler.
This is Saratoga! Here the battles with the French and those of
the American Revolution were fought. Mr. Schulyer, page 126,
says : " General Burgoyne's headquarters were on Lot No. 4
(Wendel's), and the battles of September ig and October 7 were
fought on Lot No. 2." General Schuyler's headquarters at Still-
water, whence General Gates marched, were on Lot No. i. The
decisive battle of the Revolution was fought on the Saratoga patent.

Wendel's lot had fine water power, bordered by timber lands.
He was a man of enterprise, and doubtless began the development
of his property as soon as the division was made. " Bartel
Vrooma's house and the stockade or fort were first on Wendell's
land." Mr. Schuyler traces amply the military scenes of two wars
on this land.

There are many notices of Captain Wendell in the New York
Hist. Col. MSS. On the occasion of a treaty of Maryland with
Cayuga and other tribes of the Six Nations, the Cayugas name
him as their agent, with Mr. Pretty to receive the beavers prom-
ised them. In 1691, a treaty was made with the Six Nations at

200 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Albany. The Mohawks declare Johannes Wendel to be adopted
by their tribe, together with Peter Schuyler and Robert Livings-
tone, and give beaver skins in token of the fact.

Staats.

Major Abraham Staats came to Rensselaerswyck in 1642. He
was a surgeon and entered into planting, freighting and real es-
tate ; was in the council 1643 ; took the oath of allegiance in 1664.
The Indians burned his bouwerie, with the farmer, wife, and one
negro. His wife was Catherine Jochemse, daughter of Jochem
Wesselse. He died before 170 1. His son. Dr. Samuel, was a dis-
tinguished physician in New York, a member of the royal council
and very active in local politics. His daughter Elizabeth married
first, Johannes Wendel ; second, J. Schuyler. Colonial New York
states that the youngest of Elizabeth's sons, Jacob, by her first
husband, went early to Boston and made his home there. He
married Sarah, daughter of Dr. James Oliver, and became a lead-
ing citizen of the town, a colonel of a Boston regiment, a member
of the King's Council, and was often employed in public business,
especially Indian affairs. He rose to eminence in a common-
wealth of eminent men. Among the numerous descendants of
the Wendels who migrated to Boston are the notable poet, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips and Judge Sewell, and Solicitor-
General Sewall of Quebec.

One of the four Schuyler children of Elizabeth Staats died
childless; Margarita, baptized 1701, married Philip Schuyler, and
is known as " The American Lady " whose life and adventures
were written by Mrs. Grant of Laggan in a little book that has
gone through many editions. The daughter Catalyntje, baptized
in 1704, married Cornelius Cuyler, mayor of Albany, a merchant.
Their children intermarried with the Van Cortlands and other
prominent families. One, baptized in 1741, Cornelius Cuyler, be-
came a general in the British army, was colonel of the 69th regi-
ment, governor of Kinsala, distinguished himself at Tobag, and

OF THE AVOODBURY FAMILY. 201

was made a baronet. Johannes Schuyler, baptized October 31,
1697, married Cornelia Van Cortland ; he was alderman, mayor of
Albany in 1740, and on board of Indian affairs, besides being a
prominent merchant of Albany. He died in 1741. His wife was
youngest daughter of Stephanus Van Cortland and had a hand-
some estate. The most of their eleven children died young.

His son Philip was born September 11, 1733, and married
Catherine Van Rensselaer. He was major-general in the Revolu-
tion. His daughter Elizabeth married General Hamilton, who
was connected through another line with Mrs. Ouincy.

Dr. Samuel Staats died in 17 15, aged sixty-eight, says the
Gouverneur family Bible, consequently he was born in 1657, and
the Begum Princess story is a myth. His daughter Sarah married
Isaac Gouverneur, 1704, June 24. Another daughter, Trintje,
married Lewis Morris, Jr., March 17, 1723. He was second pro-
prietor of the manor of Morrisana, which was created by patent
from Governor Fletcher for Lewis Morris, sometime judge, gover-
nor and king's councillor in New York and New Jersey.

Staats Long, son of Lewis Morris, Jr., was a general in the
British army and married the Dowager Duchess of Gordon. Lewis,
Jr., in his second marriage, took the grandniece of his first wife,
Tryntje Staats. Their eldest son was Gouverneur Morris, the
well-known statesman and jurist of the Revolution and Constitu-
tion period.

There is certainly a marked quality in the descendants of the
major which breaks out every few generations and shows it is a
good cross in a family tree.

Abraham, the son of Johannes Wendell and Elizabeth Staats,
became a resident of New York 1699, and married May 15, 1702,
Katrinka de Kay, eldest daughter of Teunis and Helena Van
Brughde Kay. (Query : Is not the license for the marriage May 14,
1701 ?) (New York Gen. Reg. 3, page 195.) His name is found
on the list of aldermen in New York before 1717. Tuckerman's
" Life of Stuyvesant," page 183, is in error in saying from 1695 to
1 71 7. He was largely engaged in business with Holland, Europe

13

202 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

and New England, the Wendel Family Memoir states, and was an
extensive landholder, liberal and generous. He removed to Bos-
ton and there died, September 28, 1734, being buried in Col. John
Wendell's tomb in the old Granary Burying Ground on Tremont
Street.

Let me say here for all these Dutch pedigrees, that Tryntje,
Catalina and Katherine are the same name respectively in Dutch,
Spanish and English, and used rather indiscriminately as equiva-
lents in those days.

The children of Abraham and Katrinka de Kay Wendell were :

1. John, baptized May 2, 1703; married November 10, 1724, Eliza-
beth, daughter of Hon. Edmund Ouincy and his wife, Dorothy Flynt.

2. Elizabeth, baptized August 20, 1704; married April 15, 1725, Ed-
ward Ouincy, Jr., of Boston and died November 7, 1769.

3. Abraham, baptized March 3, 1706; married Jane Phillips ; died
April 17, 1741.

4. Helena de Kay, married John Rogers ; died at Jamaica, W. I.

5. Katharina, baptized May 27, 1709; married William Bulfinch of
Boston.

6. Jacobus, baptized August 31, 1712.

7. Lucretia, baptized July 18, 1714; married Samuel Sturgis of Barns-
stable; died March, 1752.

8. Theunis de Kay, born June 24, 1716; died young.

9. Theunis de Kay, another, baptized October ;^o, 17 17.

10. Hendrick, baptized August 3, 1719.

11. Sarah, baptized January 20, 1721 ; married John Dennie of Boston.

12. Mary, who married Peter Oliver.

Elizabeth's son, Dr. Jacob Ouincy, was father of Mrs. Eliz-
abeth Ouincy Clapp of Portland, Me.

Abraham Wendell's brother Jacob and his son John were
partners. John was colonel of the Suffolk regiment at the time
of his death, and a commander of the Ancient and Honorable
Artillery in 1640. He lived at the corner of Court and Tremont
streets.

Col. Jacob Wendell was twice commander of the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company and was one of the province royal

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 208

councillors from 1734 to 1760. Histories of Boston and Wendell
genealogies contain notices of their public spirit and munificence.

Judge Oliver Wendell was son of Colonel Jacob, a patriot and
man of distinction in the Revolutionary period. Dr. Oliver Wen-
dell Holmes descended from him, whose son is Judge Oliver Wen-
dell Holmes. Wendell Phillips, the remarkable anti-slavery orator,
was descended from a daughter of Colonel Jacob.

It is not inapropos to give a description of the rich dress in
which Colonel Jacob ordinarily appeared on the Exchange : " Col-
onel Jacob Wendell, one of the solid men of Boston, is thus de-
scribed as coming down State street at noon, then the hour of
'Change. His dress was rich : a scarlet embroidered coat,
gold laced, cocked hat, embroidered long waistcoat, small clothes,
with gold knee buckles, silk stockings, with gold clocks ; shoes
and large gold buckles or silver, as the importance of the occasion
demanded, full ruffles at the bosom and wrists, and walking with
a gold-headed cane." He gave a stained glass window, with his
arms, to the old Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. Wendell
Phillips owned a fine portrait of him.

At a dinner of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery given
when Colonel Walker was its commander, I sat beside Phillips
Brooks, a distant relative through the Woodburys, I being intro-
duced as a representative in blood of past commanders. Rank
civilians though we were, both Phillips Brooks and myself tried to
keep up the military spirit.

When the Revolution began, the successor of Colonel Jacob
discreetly left his house in Boston, and it was diplomatically leased
by his friends and neighbor to a British surgeon, who protected
the place from ravage until evacuation came. This, I fancy, was
the rent.

Much of the correspondence between Mr. Lovell and Mr.
Wendell has been printed in the New England Historical Regis-
ter. It is worth reading.

A branch of the Wendell family, John, son of John, son of
Abraham, settled in Portsmouth, N. H. Jacob Wendell, now of

204 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

New York, is of that stock. He was born in Portsmouth and keeps
his summer home at Newcastle, Great Island, a prosperous and
worthy gentleman with a clever family.

In Talcott's notes and other Albany works can be found the
alliances of the Wendells into many prominent families of New
York.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DE KAY.

(HAVE told of the Wendell marriage with De Kay. The De
Kays were from Holland. Jacob de Kay was one of the di-
rectors of the Amsterdam Chamber, prior to 1634. In 1644,
William de Kay was the receiver-general of New Amsterdam.
Jacob Theunis de Kay is found in New Amsterdam prior to 1660.
Probably he is brother of William. He was a highly esteemed
citizen of probity and honor, left a large property, and among
other children two sons, Theunis and Jacobus, from whom descend
the present representatives. (Valentine's History of New York.)

In 1673, the son Theunis was rated in the tax bills at eight
thousand guilders. Theunis lived upon Heeren Gracht, now
Broad Street. May 26, 1680, he married Helena Van Brugh, and
they had twelve children. I give the names of but two : Kat-
arina, baptized March 5, 1681, who married Abraham Wendell
May 15, 1702; Helegonda, baptized 1682, who married Jacobus
Bayard ; he was the grandson of Ann Bayard, sister of the Gov.
Peter Stuyvesant.

In 1683 Theunis de Kay appears to have been one of the as-
sistant aldermen who joined the mayor in a petition to the king in
favor of a new charter. He was concerned in politics frequently,
taking part actively in the movements of the day and in church
matters. His wife was the daughter of the burgomaster, Joannes
Pietern Van Brugh, and his wife, Tryntje Roeloff. April 20, 1689,
Theunis was in the City Council, when news of Andros's imprison-
ment at Boston came to New York. In 1690 he is in a tumult
about the lieutenant governor and the prisoners in the fort, from
which the inference is, that he was an anti-Leislerian. There are

205

206 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

a number of depositions that Theunis was armed, threatening to
rescue the prisoners from the fort. Good reason, his father was
a prisoner.

The senior Jacob was one of the petitioners to the king, May
19, 1690, as well as his son Theunis. Nicholas Bayard departed
in the night from New York after being warned by Mrs. Van
Brugh and Mrs. de Peyster, in a boat of Mr. de Kay's. He
reached Albany and was protected by Schuyler and Livingston.

Van Brugh.

Joannes Pieterse Van Brugh was born in Harlaem, 1624,
came to New Amsterdam, where he was prominently connected
with the Dutch West India Company. He was one of the burgo-
masters of the city in 1656. He was one of the twenty forming
the great citizenship of New Amsterdam, from whom municipal
officers of importance were to be appointed. This class was abol-
ished in 1668. When the English fleet and troops, under Colonel
Nicholas, captured the colony in 1664, he was in authority as one
of the burgomasters and continued in office for a few months.

The governor incorporated Manhattan into a city government
under the name of New York, and Thomas Willet of the Old Ply-
mouth colony was the first English mayor of New York. Mr.
Van Brugh was retained as one of the aldermen, but he made a
spirited remonstrance to Governor Nichols against this subver-
sion of the old elective institution and the filling such places by
appointment from the governor. In 1673, when the Dutch re-
conquered the province of New York, Van Brugh was by election
replaced as burgomaster. He held this office twelve years under
Governor Stuyvesant.

It is a little singular that the descendants of Edmund Ouincy,
Jr., should trace both from the burgomaster and the mayor,
Thomas Willet. Van Brugh is given by a number of authorities
as owning considerable property, and his wife, Catherine Roeloffse,
was a daughter of the celebrated Anneke Jans, owner of the

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 20T

Trinity Church lands over which there has been so much litigation.
Their children were :

1. Helena, born July 28, 1660 ; married Theunis de Kay, May 26,
1680.

2. Anna, married Andrew Gravenseit.

3. Catherine, married Hendrich Van Rensallaer. She was born Aprif
19, 1665.

4. Petrus, married Sarah Cuyler.

5. Johannes, married Margaret Provost.

6. Maria, married Stephen Richards.

Peter Van Brugh's daughter, Caterina, married Phillip Liv-
ingston, the second proprietor of Livingston Manor. She is
called Tryntje, her Dutch name, instead of Caterina or Catherine.

The fourth son of Phillip and Catherine Livingston, Phillip,
was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The
brother of Phillip, Robert, was ancestor of Chancellor Livingston.
William, the fifth son, was war governor of New Jersey. John
was a Tory, Peter a merchant of New York.

" Catherine," the sister of Peter and daughter of Johannes,
married Hendrick Van Rensselaer, of Claverhook, grandson of the
first patroon. His son Johannes married Angelica Livingston.
Catherine, their daughter, married Gen. Philip Schuyler of the
Revolution.

This Van Brugh blood, besides its transmission through the
De Kays and the Wendells into eastern families of consideration,
runs into notable New York families, Schuylers, Van Rensselaers,
Livingstons and others.

It will not need a chart to show that Phillip Livingston,
signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Elizabeth Wendell
Quincy were each great grandchildren of the sturdy old Burgomas-
ter Van Brugh, who stood so stoutly for municipal elections against
Governor Nichols. Van Brugh evidently had ability as well as
sagacity and experience. New York historians state that Gover-
nors Nichols and Lovelace often sought his judgment and sugges-
tions on Colonial affairs.

208 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

I interject the reflection that when Dorothy Ouincy, bride of
John Hancock, found herself at Philadelphia attending the momen-
tous Congress for America, neither she nor her husband were dis-
heartened to find such cousins members. Though now it looks to
our eyes as a distinguished connection, in 1776, these relatives
were pledging lives, fortunes and honor on a struggle for liberty
where if success has made them glory, failure would have brought
them to the block as traitors to England. Resistance to tyranny
is obedience to God. The stock which produced such descend-
ants deserves more than a memorial tablet or a painted glass win-
dow in some church. The true question is, Will they be proud
of us .''

"One of the Schepens, Johannes Van Brugh, was also invited
to the meetings of the Council, and his opinions treated with pro-
found deference. His wife was daughter of Anneke Jans. They
lived in a stone house near Haunover Square, in front of which
several large trees cast their shadow over the green." Thus says
Mrs. Lamb in her " History of New York."

Mr. and Mrs. Van Brugh were the first of the Dutch resi-
dents who gave a dinner party in honor of the new governor, Nich-
ols. In October, 1664, Van Brugh and two hundred others took the
" oath of allegiance," Broadhead's "History of New York," Stene's
history, also state more about him. Concerning the new coun-
cil of Governor Nichols, Broadhead states : " On extraordinary
occasions Stuyvesant, late Secretary, Cornells Van Ruyven and
Johannes Van Brugh were sometimes called to assist." The great
burgher right, or the upper class from whom officials were to be
elected, was introduced into New Amsterdam. There were only
twenty members, and one of the three Van Brughs was Johannes
Pieterse.

On the reconquest of New York by the Dutch fleet, Van
Brugh comes into conspicuous relations, once more, 1673. In
1673, the burgomasters were ordered "to be chosen from the
wealthiest inhabitants, and those only who are of the Reformed
Christian Relio;ion." Van Brush was one of the two selected.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 209

He was one of those who estimated the vahie of the houses and
gardens destroyed to make a suitable glacis for the fort. He
was one of the council selected to confer with the war council in
behalf of the safety of New Orange. In 1673 he was commis-
sioned captain of the militia. In 1674 he was again burgomas-
ter. One of the rules adopted by the burgomasters was that
" Whoever should smoke tobacco in court should forfeit two and a
half guilders," The burgomaster sat in council with Governor
Colve regularly at all their meetings.

In 1674, when peace was declared between Holland and Eng-
land, with the clause that each should surrender its conquests
made during the war, a new trial of the heart fell on these ancient
Netherlanders, lovers of liberty and individual independence.

Governor Colve, the Dutch governor, preparing to leave re-
quested the Court to select ten persons to exercise executive
authority until his majesty's commission should take possession.
Van Brugh was one of the ten.

When Andros took the government of New York in 1675,
Van Brugh, De Peyster and others of the Dutch burghers were
willing to take the oath of allegiance, as they did to Governor
Nichols, saving the terms of capitulation of 1664, giving them free-
dom as to religion, property, etc. But Andros demanded it un-
conditionally. Then they petitioned to be allowed to dispose of
their estates and leave. He arrested the eight signers, charg-
ing them with endeavor to raise a rebellion. They were examined,
ordered to be tried, and after awhile, on giving heavy bonds, re-
leased from imprisonment.

A stout old Dutchman he was, and stood manfully for the
rights of the people, occupying a prominent position in the negotia-
tion of the old residents with Governor Andros. Van Brugh was
one of the committee who went on board the frigate on which An.
dros arrived, to welcome him, and he made great effort to secure for
the Dutch the privileges and rights which had been acknowledged
them on the original conquest and surrender in 1664 to Governor
Nichols. He perilled his liberty and property, incurring even
imprisonment for standing up for the rights of the Dutch.

210 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

The spirit of religious toleration, elective government and per-
sonal liberty of the Hollanders strike us most gratefully, and draw
sighs of sympathy at their hard fortune in descending from such a
state to be subjects of the Duke of York and his despotic viceroy,
Andros. But the spirit of these old burghers was exemplified in
their descendants in the Revolution. Every old Dutch family ral-
lied to the cause with their fortunes, influence and swords : Schuy-
ler, Morris, Livingston, Van Cortland, Van Rensselear.

His wife was Tryntje Roeloff, who had previously married
Lucas Rodenburg, vice director at Curacoa, 1646 to 1657, where
he died. When she married Van Brugh, her friends there sent
her one keg of salt, one keg of preserved lemons, one of lemon
juice, a parrot, and twelve parroquets. Robert Livingstone, son
of Robert Livingstone, first proprietor, is the ancestor of Chan-
cellor Livingston and of Edward Livingstone, secretary of state
under Jackson. When Levi Woodbury was secretary of the
treasury, the families lived in adjacent houses on Lafayette
Square in Washington.

Roeloff Janson was the husband of Anneke Jans, coming to
Rensellearwych with his family in 1630. In 1636 he removed to
New Amsterdam and secured a ground brief or title to sixty-two
acres, " bounded west by the Hudson, north by the old Jans
Land." Shortly after he died, leaving Anneke a widow with five
small children. Soon after, March, 1638, she married the Rev. Ever-
hardus Bogardus, dominie of the church in New York and the
first settled pastor in the country, a man of intelligence. It is as
witness to the contract to build this church that Captain Wil-
lett's name first appeared on the Dutch records of New Amster-
dam, a few years after.

Anneke was no ordinary woman. Before her marriage with
Dominie Bogardus, she executed a settlement of two hundred
guilders to each of the five children out of their paternal estate,
Sarah, Trynje, Sytje, Jan and Annatje. She had four sons in
her second marriage, William, Cornelius, Jonas and Pieter.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 211

Sarah married first, Dr. Hans Kierstede ; second, Cornelius Van Bor-
sum; third, Elbert Elbertson. Her eldest son, Hans Kierstede, Jr., mar-
ried a daughter of Govert Lookermans, whose sister, Anneke Lookermans,
was the wife of Oloff Van Cortland. The daugther of Dr. Hans Kierstede
and his wife, Blandina, married Petrus Bayard, a nephew of Governor Stuy-
vesant. Petrus was ancestor of the Pennsylvania and Delaware Bayards,
a family of eminence. He was a " Come outer," Labardist in religion.
(Colonial New York.)

Two others married Kips, a name well known in the church. And
William Teller, a prominent merchant, was the husband of the other.

Annetje Roeloff's sister Maritje Jans married first, Tymen
Jansen ; second, Dirk Cornelis Van Wonveen ; third, Govert Look-
ermans, the most active, enterprising merchant in New Amster-
dam and supposed to be the richest man in the province. Elsie
Tymens, daughter by the first marriage, married, first, Peter C.
Vanderveen, a trader who built the first brick house and the first
large ship. Second, April ii, 1663, she married Jacob Leisler.

By her second husband she had one son, Cornelis Direkse ;
by Govert Lookermans, a son Jacob who was a physician, settled
as a planter in Maryland, and the race died out. Govert Looker-
mans had two daughters when he married Maritje, one of whom
married Belthazar Bayard ; the other married Dr. Kierstede,
junior.

Subsequently the De Lancys, the De Peysters, the Jays and
others married into families already named, so the blood of Anneke
Jans and her sister Maritje is mingled in almost all the old families
of New York, New Jersey and Delaware.

Back to Van Brugh. He made his will December, 1696, and
died 1697. Galatie, daughter of Anneke Jans, 1664, married
Paulus Richards, whose father was a French nobleman. His son
Stephen married Maria, baptized September 20, 1663, daughter of
Van Brugh. They had nine children, all of whom married well.
(Mrs. Lamb's Hist. N. Y., page 343.)

Jacob Leisler was a rich and well connected merchant of New
York when he was forced by his attachment to the cause of Wil-
liam of Orange to lead the revolt of the people against the adherents
of James the Serand to secure the colony to the side of William.

212 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

The Jacobites were in possession of authority, and resisted. At
Albany they were strongest, but the New York City people were
five to one with the revolution. Leisler's party, both before and
after his death, wars very strong, and many royal governors adhered
to it in the fight that divided families into factions. His execution
was an outrage. The attainder was reversed, afterwards, and his
children married with the best of both parties.

Jacob Leisler married Elsie Tymens, in 1663. She was
daughter of Anneke Jans's sister Maritje. One of their daugh-
ters, Catherine, married Robert Walter, mayor of New York and
member of the King's Council. Their daughter Elizabeth mar-
ried Capt. John Wendell, brother of Abraham. Maria Walter was
third wife of Arent Schuyler, and after his death married Archi-
bald Kennedy, receiver general.

John Walter, son of Robert, had an only daughter, Hester,
who became the wife of Col. Peter Schuyler of New Jersey, and
their only daughter, Catherine, married Archibald Kennedy, Jr.,
who in time succeeded to the earldom of Cassilis.

Mary Leisler married, second, Abram Gouverneur. Hester
married Barent Rynders. One of their daughters married Nich-
olas Bayard, grandson of the Nicholas Bayard whom Jacob Leisler
had so long held prisoner in irons. So wags the world !

De Trieux.

Philip de Trieux, or Truy, was a Walloon, born in 1585. He
came to New Amsterdam under the administration of Minnit. In
1640 he was granted a patent for land in Smit's valley, which was
between Wall street and Franklin Square in New York City.
His wife was Susan de Scheene, who was living as late as 1654.

His daughter Susannah, July 31, 1644, married Evarts Jans Wendell;
another daughter, Rebecca, married Simon Simonse Groot. Sarah married
Isaac De Forest. Rachael married Hendrick Von Brummel, and second.
Dirk Jans De Groot. His sons were Abram, Isaac and Jacob ; the latter
married Lysbeth Post.

Susannah and Evarts Jans Wendell had eight children, of
whom the fourth, Johannes, is our ancestor. It is claimed that
Philip de Trieux was marshal of New Netherlands.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

EDMUND QUINCY.

JUDGE EDMUND QUINCY, third, was the son of Col. Ed-
mund Quincy and Elizabeth Gookin Elliot. He was born
October 24, 1681, in Brain tree ; graduated at Harvard 1699,
He married November 20, 1701, Dorothy Flynt, daughter of the
Rev. Josiah Flynt of Dorchester and Esther Willet, daughter of
Capt. Thomas Willet of Swansea, who was the first English mayor
of New York. He died 1737-38.

He represented Braintree in the General Court 171 3-1 4, and
became colonel of the Suffolk militia; Royal Councillor of the
province, 1715-29, and 1734-35-36-37, eighteen years. (Whitte-
more's Civil list of Mass.) He was judge of the Superior Court
of Massachusetts, 1718, and by reappointments occupied the bench
till his death. Thomas Greaves was commissioned to fill the seat
during his absence on public business. He was sent to England
by the province as its agent on the disputed boundary between
New Hampshire and Massachusetts, then pending on appeal be-
fore the king and Privy Council. He died while over there of
smallpox, and was buried in Bunhill Fields, London. Massachu-
setts erected a monument to his memory, with appropriate inscrip-
tions. His children were :

1. Edmund (whose memoir is given).

2. Elizabeth, born October 17, 1706; married November, 1724, John
Wendel, the brother of Edmund Quincy's wife Elizabeth.

3. Josiah, born 1710; graduated from Harvard, 1728; married Han-
nah Sturgis, 1733; Elizabeth Waldron ; Ann Marsh.

4. Dorothy, born January 4, 1709; married, 1738, Edward Jackson ;
died, 1762. She was the " Dorothy Q." of Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem,
gallant and spirited.

213

214 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Her son, Jonathan Jackson, was the first United States mar-
shal, and married Hannah Tracy. His son, Judge Charles Jack-
son, married Fanny Cabot, who was the daughter of George
Cabot, who married Hannah Dodge, who was the daughter of
Lydia Herrick and George Dodge, who was the son of Joshua
Dodge, who married Hannah Raiment, daughter of Jerusha Wood-
bury and George Raiment. Judge Charles Jackson and Fanny
Cabot were the ancestors of Robert Treat Paine of the present
day.

The province of Massachusetts, in further recognition of the
services of Judge Quincy, granted one thousand acres of land in
the town of Lenox to his family. His son Josiah accompanied
his father to England, where the judge by inoculation took the
smallpox and died from its effects. Notices of the judge are found
in the "Salisbury Family Memorial"; a life by Miss Quincy in
the New England Hist. Gen. Reg., 1864, pages 145-156 ; Sibley's
Harvard College graduates ; Funeral Sermon by Rev. John Han-
cock ; Chas. Francis Adams in " Three Episodes of Massachusetts
History," etc.

No one has taken the trouble to burrow through the provin-
cial archives to find his special labors during twenty or more years
of public service.

After the peace of Utrecht a treaty was made at "Ports-
mouth in her majesty's province of New Hampshire in New Eng-
land the 13th of June, in the 12th year of the reign of our Sover-
eign Lady Anne, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France
and Ireland, Queen, defender of the Faith, 1713. The submission
and agreement of the Eastern Indians." Williamson's " History
of Maine" states that Governor Dudley of Massachusetts and
New Hampshire appointed nine councillors from Massachusetts,
nine from New Hampshire, and two from Maine, and made this
treaty with them at Portsmouth. It was a very important occa-
sion. A great many gentlemen of note were present and signed
it. It seems to me they were commissioners. The fifth signa-
ture at Portsmouth is Edmund Quincy's, a free, bold autograph.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 215

The province was anxious to reverse the decision rendered
on the boundary line of New Hampshire and Massachusetts by the
board of arbitration, of which Philip Livingston of New York was
chairman, and therefore sent Edmund Ouincy to England on ac-
count of his acknowledged ability, with the special appeal to the
king and council.

From his coming of age, he had inherited and resided in the
old homestead at Braintree. He greatly improved and enlarged
it and made the brook which meandered through the grounds a
decorative feature. As it emptied into salt water a hundred or two
yards beyond the house, gave convenience for sailing into Boston
Bay, and for fishing.

Here are a few extracts from the funeral sermon preached by
his pastor, Rev. John Hancock. It is dedicated " To my honored
friend, Henry Flynt, brother-in-law and nearer allied in the ties of
friendship to the late Judge Ouincy, and my dear friend Mr.
Edmund Quincy, Mr. Josiah Quincy, Mrs. Elizabeth Wendel, Mrs.
Dorothy Quincy, the bereaved children.

" The conduct of the Divine Providence toward your family
in the course of the last year hath been uncommon and unaccount-
able. The blessed God hath seen meet to break you with breach
upon breach, first, the death of your pious grandmother Flynt in
a good old age (ninety) ; and then in the sudden death of your
virtuous mother (August 19) in her sixtieth year. The Providence
of God hastened her reward of the pious care of her aged parent.
For as soon as she had committed her precious remains to the
dust and had set her house in order, she finishes her work, un-
dresses and dies. . . .

" You are parted at present from one of the most affectionate
and tender fathers. . . .

"An example of suffering and affliction and patience, for his
graces brightened and flowed out in the furnace in that great
hour of affliction (when your mother died)." The orator referred
to the letter he had from the judge, dated London, January 31,
1737. It expressed his resignation to Providence in the matter,

216 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

and closed with sending his respects " to my friends of the church
and town."

The oration is pathetic, eloquent and reverential of the vir-
tues and abilities that had marked the judge as councillor, states-
man, jurist, citizen. As I read, the impression gained on me of
the deep respect and confidence the people of the province had
in his character and ability ; how sorrowfully their hearts beat at
the portals of his tomb.

Rev. Mr. Hancock names some of his personal attributes
worthy of remembrance :

" The Lord has taken away from us the eloquent orator.
This honorable person was a close reasoner, a graceful speaker,
unto him men gave ear and waited and kept silence at his council.
— He was a rare example of social virtues." "We rejoiced in his
light and administration." After describing the qualities of his
ancestors in America, he adds : " He hath raised the credit of the
family by his superior accomplishments." This personal descrip-
tion should find place.

" This great man was of manly stature and aspect, of a strong
constitution and good courage." Thus let us reproduce him to
our imagination, cool, reflective, full of vigor, modest, but deter-
mined.

His wife, Dorothy Flynt, died August 19, 1737, she was an-
cestress of as brilliant a group of descendants as can be found in
any country. Only the month prior to her death had her mother,
Esther Willett, closed her eyes in the ninetieth year of her age.

Flynt.

Rev. Josiah Flynt, baptized June 24, 1648, was the son of the
Rev. Henry Flynt and his wife, Margery Hoare, of Braintree,
Mass. He was graduated at Harvard, 1664; settled as minister
at Dorchester, 1671, and died in 1680. The Memorial History of
Boston states he was successor of Richard Mather, and was the
first to preach in the new meeting-house on the hill. His zealous
ministry was somewhat interrupted by bad health.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 217

He married Esther Willet, the daughter of Capt. Thomas
Willet of Swansea, Plymouth Colony. Esther was born July i6,
1648. She died July 30, 1737. Their children were :

Henry, born February 9, 1673.

Henry, born March 12, 1675.

Josiah, born October 5, 1676.

Dorothy, born May 11, 1678.

Mary, born July 11, 1672-73; died October 15, 1673.

Thomas, born July 11, 1680.

This Dorothy married Judge Quincy. She died in 1737, Aug-
ust 19. In 1667, her father preached a sermon before the Ancient
and Honorable Artillery. A letter is preserved from Rev. Leon-
ard Hoare to his nephew, Josiah Flynt, when a student at Har-
vard, exhorting him to careful study and note-taking in a book of
all he reads, and which evidently had good effect on his industry.

Little remains of his literary efforts : an epistle, dedicated to
Mrs. Bridget. Usher, " my ever honored aunt," 1680 ; it is pre-
faced to his uncle ; Rev. Leonard Hoare's sermon on the Lady
Mildmay; a dairy, said to be in the possession of Abiel Holmes.
Also, it is said, he published an almanac for one year.

His son Henry is the gentleman frequently mentioned in
Quincy family as "The Tutor Flynt." He lived to be the oldest
fellow of Harvard, and published twenty sermons in three vol-
umes. He died September 15, 1680. I am searching for a copy
catalogued abroad.

Rev. John Hancock expressed great esteem for Mrs. Esther
Flynt, who had survived his predecessor fifty-seven years, and with
whom he was well acquainted.

What sent the blushing Josiah to the shores of Rehoboth and
Swansea to woo and win this pearl of the bay, lovely and rich in
worldly gear and family, may be readily conjectured. His sister
Joanna had married the Rev. Noah Newman, the pastor of the
township, who had succeeded his father, the Rev. Samuel New-
man, the author of the Concordance. Joanna was niece of the third
president of Harvard.

Captain Willett's house, as I observe from inventory, was
full of the elements of good cheer and the spirit of hospitality.

CHAPTER XXIX.

WILLET.

CAPT. THOMAS WILLET came to Plymouth in the last im-
portation of the Leyden congregation in 1629-30. From a
remark in Bradford's Letter Book it may be that he came
in the fleet with Governor Winthrop. Mr. Shelby, an English
friend, had formed a partnership with one Ashley to carry on the
Indian trade, and at his request the Plymouth people came in as
partners as a precaution against rivalry.

They insisted that young Willet be sent to the Penobscot
with Ashley to guard their interests and represent them on the
spot. He was for many years one of the lessees of the Plymouth
Kennebec Patent and trade. The adventures of this expedition
will be found in his memoirs. In 1636 he married Mary Brown,
daughter of Mr. John Brown of Plymouth, one of the governor's
council and assistant in the government of the colony.

Captain Willet succeeded Miles Standish as captain of the
militia company, and he was also during fourteen years elected an
assistant to the council, and transacted his affairs with the other
colonies, the Dutch as well as the Indians. He was one of the ar-
bitrators in the dispute between Governor Stuyvesant and the New
Haven Colony in 1650, over their boundary line. He was present
officially as delegate from Plymouth Colony, at the conquest and
surrender of New Amsterdam to the English fleet and army under
Colonel Nichols, and was of great assistance from his knowledge
of the language and his long personal intercourse both in reduc-
ing the Dutch there and at Fort Orange, and in establishing rela-
tions of friendship with the Six Nations, whom in view of French
ambitions, it was of the utmost importance to secure to Great

Britain.

218

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 219

When Willet was appointed mayor by Governor Nichols, he
held it for two terms. He had returned to Manhattan ; Gover-
nor Nichols made a city charter, displacing the old form of govern-
ment. Broadhead says he was a councillor till the Dutch recap-
tured New York. He was one of the Court of Admiralty and
Prize ; and continued to be much consulted by succeeding English
governors.

He was greatly employed by his home colony in its affairs
with Rhode Island, where he was a large land-holder, but that in
New York was confiscated on the return of the Dutch power;
however, Governor Colve, the military governor, and his council
frankly and generously acknowledged his worth. He went to his
home in Swansea and died in 1674, on August 4, before he could
witness the resumption of English dominion and the return of his
property. He made for the colony and townships many treaties
with the Wampanoag Indians (Alexander and then Philip were
the chiefs), over whom he had much influence.

He was buried at Swansea. His estate was large, his library
fine, evidences of culture, and he had a taste for art, rare at that
time in New England. His inventory included forty paintings, a
pair of globes, books, a hundred titles, etc. The will, dated in
1671, says, " In the sixty-fourth year of my age," thus, contrary to
to his tombstone, he was over sixty-seven years old when he died.
His sons declined to be executors, and his son-in-law, John Saffin,
at one time speaker of the house and judge of Common Pleas,
who married Martha Willet, took the responsibility.

Captain Willet had all that spirit of religious liberty and tol-
eration that might have been expected from his early education in
Holland, and was perseveringly antagonistic to the union of church
and state. He was successful in procuring for the Welsh Baptists,
who came under Mr. Mylne, a home and liberty in Swansea. In
this his father-in-law, Mr. John Brown, was an enthusiastic and
potent coworker. They won their cause in the Old Colony with-
out the martyrdom that visited John Roger Williams in the Bay.
In every relation of life, he was distinguished for his high ability

220 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

and integrity; a wise legislator, a man of reflection, of executive
force and humanity.

The children of Thomas Willet and his wife, Mary Brown,
who died January 8, 1669 :

1. Mary, baptized November 10, 1637, at Plymouth; married Rev.
Samuel Hooker of Farmington, Conn., son of Rev. Thomas Hooker.
They had nine sons, two daughters. For a second husband, August 10,
1703, at sixty-seven, she married the Rev. Thomas Buckingham of Say-
brook, Conn.

2. Martha, born 1639; married, 1658, December 2, John Saffin ; died,
1678, and two of her children, of smallpox.

3. John, born August, 1641.

4. Sarah, born 1643 ! married the Rev. John Elliott.

5. Rebecca, born 1644; died young.

6. Thomas, born October i, 1646; lived on Long Island.

7. Esther, born July 10, 1648; married Rev. Josiah Flynt.

8. James, born November 23, 1649; married Elizabeth Hunt of Reho-
both.

9. Hezekiah, died July, 1651, an infant.

10. Hezekiah, born November 17, 1651; married Annie, daughter of
John Brown, second. Was killed by Indians at Swansea, July i, 1676.

11. David, born November i, 1654.

12. Andrew, born October 5, 1655 ; lived in Boston.

13. Samuel, born October 27, 1658; settled on Long Island.

Samuel was a sheriff and a Quaker. He was ancestor of Col.
Marinus Willett of the Revolution, who was mayor of New York
1801. He died 1830, August 23, aged ninety.

Captain Willett afterward married a second wife, the widow

of Rev. Pruda, whose maiden name was Joanna Boys ; she

survived him. She was a lady of good family connections in Eng-
land. Many of her letters are published in the New Eng. Hist.
Gen. Register, 11, pages 231-239.

CHAPTER XXX.

BROWN.

JOHN BROWN was a young man when he came to the Old
Colony and was probably about fifty when he was elected a

Freeman in 1634. He resided first at Plymouth and then at
Duxbury, but became interested and was one of the founders of
Cohannet, Taunton. In 1635, he was elected one of the assistants
in the government of the colony and entered upon the duty of
magistrate.

In 1640, with Miles Standish as a committee from the Gen-
eral Court, he laid out the boundaries of Taunton, making a town-
ship as large as a county, from which many have been subse-
quently carved. The adventure of the frontier pleased him. He
joined Captain Pole's military company in 1643.

Rehoboth. Various parties were pushing for a new settlement,
and having enlisted Mr. Brown's influential aid, organized at
Weymouth October 24, 1643. Mr. Brown, Rev. Sheuman, Peck
and Paine were the originators, or founders of that town. The
original purchase was made in 1641, by Brown and A. Parker, of
Massasoit for Seekonk. A deed was subsequently given by Philip,
successor of Massasoit.

Dissentients from Weymouth and elsewhere, flowed in there,
and made a population liberal in views on religious hberty and
baptism. Massachusetts wrote in vain against their tolerant spirit.
" Old Rehoboth comprised the present town, with Seekonk, Paw-
tucket, Attleborough, and part of Swansey." The theory of reli-
gious liberty which their leaders had imbued from long residence
in Holland achieved its first permanent triumph in this township,
greatly to the disgust of the bigots who had planted an exclusive
state religion in the colony.

221

222 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

Brown was continuously re-elected one of the assistants in
the colony government. In 1643, the four New England colonies,
excluding Rhode Island, entered into a confederation and
appointed representative commissioners, two from each colony, for
their affairs. In 1644, September 19, Mr. Brown, who had been
elected to the General Court in June, took his seat as one of the
commissioners from Plymouth.

In 1645, the Colonial government established Rehoboth, on
the southwest borders of its charter lines, contiguous to the Wam-
panoag Indians. Their chiefs successively, Massasoit, Alexander,
and Philip, are familiar to our school boys. Rehoboth was con-
tiguous to Rhode Island, with whom the colony had a chronic dis-
pute on boundary lines. John Brown and James Brown moved
into the territory from Taunton. (Baylies' "New Plymouth.'')

From 1647 to 1650, Mr. Brown was one of the selectmen, and
drew lots with the others for their share or division of lands in the
township from year to year, as the divisions were ordered. In
1645 Mr. Brown became a large proprietor at Wannamoiset
(Swansea). He paid the Indians fifteen pounds to move off the
lands. They still held a small neck, and agreed with the town
that in consideration of getting rid of inconvenient neighbors the
neck of land should belong to him. Lands were divided in pro-
portion to taxable estate, and twelve pounds were the rate for a
poll. Mr. Brown's share was guarantee of three hundred pounds.

Brown stood resolutely for the authority he represented,
whether as magistrate or commissioner, and Winthrop's journal
(Winthrop's Journal, 2, pages 252, 220) tells how twenty people
of Massachusetts, who were coming to plant in the Narragansett
country near S. Goston and his friends, had confronted the oppo
sition of John Brown, magistrate and commissioner, who was sup-
ported by the Plymouth authorities when Massachusetts com-
plained. He also relates how Plymouth sent Mr. Brown to Aquid-
ney Island to forbid Mr. Williams and to exercise jurisdiction over
it, claiming that it belonged to them.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 223

In " Simplicitie's Defence against Seven-Headed Policy," re-
printed in vol. 4, Force's Tracts, page 98, circa, 1645, Roger
Williams states : " Plymouth joined in league with Massachu-
setts and sent their messenger to Rhode Island, as namely, one
Master John Brown, an assistant in government, amongst them
there who went from house to house both in Portsmouth and
Newport, discouraging the people from yielding any obedience un-
to the authority of the charter; giving them warning (as from the
Court of Plymouth) not to submit unto any government that was
established by virtue of a late pretended charter as he very pre-
sumptuously called it," etc.

There were other occasions when Rhode Island fired back at
Mr. Assistant Brown. Records of Rhode Island, vol. i, page
411, contain an order of its General Court : "May, 1659, Whereas
Mr. Blaxton (Blackstone) informeth that Mr. John Brown hath an
intent to possess a parcel of land near unto Blaxtons, conceived to
be within the limits of our Charter, the Court do order that Mr.
Blaxton do give notice to Mr. Brown to forbear taking possession
and making use of the said land until the line and or bounds be-
tween Plymouth and Providence Colonies, be agreed upon and
settled ; to which purpose the Court have chosen commissioners."

Mr. Brown resolutely opposed in 1653 the efforts of Massa-
chusetts to nullify the wise and useful provisions of the league
which the colonies had formed for self-preservation and which for
ten years had exercised a most benign influence on the peace and
prosperity of all the parties concerned. He carried the day. The
correspondence can be found in the Massachusetts Archives for
that year.

Mr. Brown's official duties as an assistant and commissioner
took up much of his time. His residence on the frontier also in-
volved his participating largely in the affairs of the colony with
Rhode Island. The Indian affairs were much intrusted to him,
keeping good relations with and making treaties for land purchases
of the Wampanoags, whose chiefs were much attached to him as
long as he lived. With the Narragansctts, another and stronger
tribe, Mr. Brown had also frequently to represent his colony.

224 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

The commissioners of the union held their meetings alter-
nately at Hartford, Boston and Plymouth. So that his Narragan-
sett pacer, saddle bags, and holster were a potential and practical
appurtenance of his daily life, rather than the occasional trapping
of military display. In those days, when the bridge builder was
not in New England, he had to assure himself that his horse was
a good swimmer. Necessarily, Mr. Brown had to be a good wood-
man and pathfinder, a wary and courageous traveller through so
many loosely bound Indian tribes.

Without entering into detail the general jurisdiction of the
commission for united defense and aggression involved relations
with the French at the eastward, the Dutch at the west, and with
all the Indian tribes near the borders of the colonies. The com-
mission made peace, and in war summoned the troops, the propor-
tional quota being fixed. Mr. Brown became dean of the board
by length of service. Every matter of importance passed under
their able supervision. In 1645, he was at a meeting in Boston,
where French business and Narragansett Indians were considered,
with the plots of Miantonamah. In September were the De Aul-
nays's affairs and treaty. Instructions to Major Willard as to the
chief Ninnigret and a war. In 1650, they made a treaty with the
Dutch governor Stuyvesant, at Hartford, about boundaries.

The colonies felt the strength of their union, and meditated a
war of conquest on the Dutch ; to this end Thomas Willet was
sent to Boston to co-operate in arranging details as to troops, etc.
The commission covered itself with the thanks and confidence of
the colonists. It evoked a grand idea in their minds. The com-
mission directed their attention to the preservation of mackerel
fishery. In 1650 they recommended to the colonies to pass laws
forbidding the taking of mackerel before July 15, because earlier
fishing interfered with the spawning of the fish. Congress eight
or nine years ago renewed such a law, greatly to the advantage of
the fishery.

The benefit of this union congress was soon felt by the four
constituent colonies. The skill, prudence and energy of the com-

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 225

missioners crowned the plan with success, and they realized they
had now at home a government for their exterior and interstate
affairs, prompt in action and responsible to themselves. Amid
vicissitudes, the spirit of this confederation sank deep into the Col-
onial hearts, until in the days of perilous assault on their liberties
the English colonies formed a Continental Congress who declared
the independence of the colonies, and fought and won the war of
liberty. Not alone for their success, but because that success
first demonstrated that the untitled Colonial freeman could conduct
the highest spheres of their interstate and foreign relations with-
out the paternal aid of kings and peers. Mr. Brown and his asso-
ciates deserve places of honor in history.

The philosophic student of politics will observe that though a
practical necessity was at the origin, yet that the leading minds of
the colonies soon observed that the confederation supplied their
political needs and reduced their dependency on Great Britain to
a nominal matter. The vision of self-government opened before
them. When Charles the Second was restored, not only were
complaints of the ill-treatment of fellow British subjects, as
Quakers, Episcopalians, antinomians, etc., brought before him, but
of the cool grasping of the colonies of a jurisdiction over persons
and land beyond their several charter limits, and the denial of
common rights in their provinces to other British subjects.

The keen statesmen of England saw that above and beyond
this the king's prerogative was encroached upon. An unauthor-
ized union had developed strength and energy to threaten war on
the Dutch, the French, or the Indians at its own pleasure. They
realized that the end of the Colonial federation of charter states
would be to throw off allegiance to the king. Hence were insti-
tuted a series of measures, revoking their charters, making them
royal provinces governed from Engla'nd, passing trade laws for
the control of them and their government. Each side understood
the issue. The colonies struggled until their charters were for-
feitedby decree of law. With skillful diplomacy the Crown fleet
conquered the Dutch, and from the standpoint of this conquest

226 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

the crown extended its royal governors over all the eastern col-
onies.

The position of Gookin and Danforth against surrendering the
charter of Massachusetts, or the right to interpret it, even to its last,
shows this spirit. The energy when William of Orange invaded
England, with which the home rule colonials overthrew their
Jacobite governors in New York and New England, shows
the republican force which struggled more hopefully as population
increased.

A supreme hour brought the question of home rule and for-
eign taxation before another Continental Congress, 1774, in which
were the lineal descendants of the resolute John Brown.

Here we are with a flag on which the sun never goes down,
and eighty-five millions of people free, one or two of us thinking
of that little seed of these grand institutions which John Brown so
tenderly nursed in the twelve first years of its existence. The
royal commission of 1664 sounded the tocsin of alarm against the
Colonial union, but could not check it.

Bradford's " History of Plymouth," page 193, refers to the
making of a treaty with the Indians by Mr. Brown, his joining in
another between the Narragansetts, Uncas of the Mohegans and
the English (page 440). He closed his services as commis-
sioner in 1656, after he had performed its duties for twelve years.
He was then about seventy.

Hubbard's "Indian Wars," Drake's edition, vol. i, page 44,
speaking of the treaty of Massasoit in 1639 with Plymouth, says :
" And after that Massasoit came to Mr. Brown that lived not far
from Mt. Hope and bringing his two sons, Alexander and Philip,
with him, desired that there might be love and amity after his
death between his sons and them as there had been betwixt himself
and them in former times." The date is uncertain, as Massasoit
lived upwards of twenty years after 1639.

In strong contrast with the persecuting theological spirit of
the times was his love for freedom of conscience. Mr. Brown did
not believe in forcing men to support a church at the will of the

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 227

majority. Baylies's " New Plymouth," in the article on Reho-
both, tells how when a petition from that town was presented to
the General Court to compel a rate to be levied to support a min-
ister, Mr. Brown said that if the General Court would send a com-
mittee to make a rate in that town, he would engage his own es-
tate for those not signing the petition. This generosity to save
the conscience of the Baptists and others and protect them from
persecution gives his memory a sweet savor in this nineteenth
century. The " History of Rehoboth," page 53, says : " Mr.
Brown was a friend to religious toleration, and was the first of
Plymouth magistrates who expressed scruples as to the expedi-
ency of coercing the people to support the ministry. He was a
man of talent, integrity, piety and his death was deeply felt
through the colony." Narragansett Club and Force's Tracts
give the testimony of Roger Williams in a letter to John Win-
throp, Jr., and of Samuel Gorton to Nathaniel Morton, in com-
mendation of Mr. Brown's character, and standing as a magistrate
and commissioner. "Mr. Brown hath often professed liberty of
conscience." The record shows he did live up as well as preach
the principles of religious toleration.

The New England Memorial, Morton's, page 193, says : This
year, 1662, Mr. John Brown ended his life. In younger years,
traveling into the Low Countries he became acquainted with, and
took good liking to the reverend pastor of the church at Leyden,
as also to sundry of the brethren of that church, which ancient
amity induced him (upon his coming over to New England) to seat
himself in the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, in which he was chosen
a magistrate, in which place he served God and the country sev-
eral years. He was well accomplished with abilities to both civil
and religious concernments and obtained through God's grace unto
a comfortable persuasion of the love and favor of God to him, he
falling sick of a fever with much serenity and spiritual comfort
fell asleep in the Lord and was honorably buried at Manamoiset
near Rehoboth, in the spring of the year aforesaid." His will,
dated April 7, 1662, and exhibited in court at Plymouth October

228 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

3, 1662, made his wife and son James executors. His realty in-
cluded twenty-seven hundred acres of land in the Narragansett
country, given to grandchildren.

He gave his daughter, Mrs. Willett, a shilling a year. She
appealed to the General Court for construction of the sentiment,
not for money. The following was ordered to be endorsed on the
will :

" Lest anything mentioned in this will in reference to Mrs.
Mary Willett, the wife of Captain Willett, might be by anyone
misconstrued to the prejudice of the said Mrs. Willett, we think it
meet to declare that out of the long experience of her dutiful and
tender respect for her said father, from time to time expressed,
there never has appeared to us, the least ground of any such things
to this present.

" The Court's mind declared. Nathaniel Morton, clerk."

This is novel, but the court's declaration of the purport and
intent of a legacy is within the legitimate scope of construction.
In Mr. Brown's inventory, I noted one side saddle, three troopers'
suits, etc. Evidently he was a boot and saddle rider and scorned
to lower the dignity of his wife to riding on a pillion behind him.

John Brown, Jr., his son, who married a daughter of William
Buckland, died about the time his father made his will, and his
own was proved at the same date.

Church's " Indian Wars," page 27, gives an anecdote of
James, son of John Brown : " Peter Nunnuit, husband of the
squaw Sachem, told him he saw Mr. James Brown of Swansea and
Mr. Samuel Gorton who was an interpreter and two other men
who brought a letter from the Governor of Plymouth to Philip.
He observed to him further that the young men were very eager
to begin war and would fain have killed Mr. Brown but Philip pre-
vented it telling them that his father had charged him to show
kindness to Mr. Brown."

James Brown was one of the magistrates of Plymouth from
1670 to 1675. During Philip's war, he had a garrison house at
Swansea. Newman's oration at Rehoboth, 1886: " There was

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 229

another of nature's noblemen among the original settlers of this
town, John Brown," etc. He was buried with civic and military
honors in 1662. Newman descended from the first minister of
Rehoboth.

Roger Williams appears to have crossed the path of our an-
cestors, John Woodbury, John Brown and Capt. Thomas Wil-
let, and found magnanimous support from their tolerant spirit.

There was a rare society in the neighborhood. On the Ply-
mouth side were Mr. Brown, Captain Willett, Rev. Mr. Newman,
author of a Concordance of the Scriptures. On the Rhode Island,
Rev. Mr. Blackstone, first settler of Boston ; Rev. Roger Williams
and Samuel Gorton, men of broad education, religious spirit,
knowledge of many nations, books and Indian tongues, all looking
for progress ; although their ways differed, they had mutual
esteem, and we infer much pleasant intercourse.

Vol. 8, page 48, Plymouth Records, gives the death of Mrs.

f- Dorothy Brown, wife of John Brown, Sen., January 27, 1673, in

the nineteenth year of her age. If Mr. Brown were as old as his

wife, he was seventy-nine or more at his death. My list of his

children is not complete :

John, who died the same year as his father, left a wife and progeny.

Mary, wife of Captain Willett, died about 1669; assuming she was
twenty when married, she would be born about 1616.

James was born 1623; died 17 10, aged eighty-seven.

His grandson, John Brown, was a useful and eminent judge, 1685, un-
der the new organization.

No Others are named in the will. The legacies were mostly
to grandchildren, remainder to the widow and James, executors.
He specifies about three thousand acres to his grandchildren.

Colonel Cartwright on the royal commission, about 1675,
states in a letter that John Brown was in England with Sir Harry
Vane from 1652 to 1660. The Rhode Island records show him
active here from 1652 onward ; also in 1659.

230 genealogical sketches

Narragansett Purchase.

John Brown and Captain Willett were both interested in the
Narragansett Purchase. I conclude it ought to have some men-
tion, as it entered into the history of the times for many years.
These Indians in due form mortgaged a large tract of their terri-
tory, situated in what are now Washington and Kent counties,
Rhode Island. As the debt matured, they were without means of
payment, and made arrangements with a party of leading gentle-
men, at the head of which were Humphrey Atherton, major, of
Massachusetts, to advance the means of payment and take a mort-
gage on the same lands for their repayment. This was in 1659.
In this year, the same party made purchase of land in Wickford,
near Smith's trading station. In 1662, the mortgage was fore-
closed and the Indians gave them possession.

There was an understanding among the leading members of
the Atherton associates not to occupy them for the present. A
partial competitor, John Hull, mint master of Massachusetts, and ^
four associates, Rhode Islanders, had purchased sixty-eight square
miles about Pottasquamscot Rock, near the sea, a part of which,
Point Judith, was named for his wife, Judith Ouincy. These had
the countenance of the Rhode Islanders, but, says Edmund Chan-
ning, in an essay on the Narragansett Planters, owing to the num-
ber of Indian chiefs whose assent was necessary to the deed, they
did not obtain a complete title (Indian) before 1660. In fact,
their purchases were made piecemeal. There was a bitter strug-
gle between these parties until the matter was adjusted by arbi-
tration in 1679.

Rival colonies claimed jurisdiction over the lands and the
rights of eminent domain. Was the jurisdiction in Rhode Island,
then it was claimed the Connecticut mortgage was void without
the consent of Rhode Island. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Plymouth each had claims to the jurisdiction. In
1672, a truce was made with Rhode Island.

R. Smith, of the Atherton company, who lived at Smith's
trading station, was made an assistant in the Rhode Island gov-

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 231

ernment, and the Atherton deeds were confirmed by that colony
in the most explicit manner. Subsequently, however, the contest
reopened and was long agitated. In 1665, the royal commis-
sioners, after some internal contest, declared it to be a royal pro-
vince, not subject to either colony.

The Rhode Island Records, i,page 466, 1663, contain a letter
from King Charles Second, directing the authorities to leave in
peace " his good subjects, Thomas Chiffinch, Jonathan Scott, John
Winthrop, Daniel Dennison, Simon Bradstreet, Thomas Willett,
Richard Smith, Edward Hutchinson, Amos Richardson, John Al-
cock, William Hudson, with their associates, having in right of
Major Atherton a just propriety in the Narragansett country in
New England, by grants from the native princes of that country."
Since this work was begun, I have heard the records of the Narra-
gansett proprietors have been found.

The Critical and Narrative History of America, vol. 3, page
*338, gives the autographs of several of the Atherton associates.
Governor Bradstreet of Massachusetts, General Dennison, Thomas
Willett, Old Colony, John Payne, Edward Hutchinson, Amos
Richardson, William Hudson, John Alcock, George Dennison, but
authorities also include Humphrey Atherton of Massachusetts,
Gov. John Winthrop of Connecticut, Josiah Winslow of Old Col-
ony, the two Richard Smiths, Mr. John Brown, Old Colony. The
king's letter also names Thomas Chiffinch and Jonathan Scott.
Undoubtedly there were more.

The controversy was not only over the John Hull claim, but
the title of the whole and the jurisdiction of the colony over the
soil.

(For further information see the Letters of Roger Williams,
page 391, Narragansett Club.)

In a letter to the Commissioners of the United Colonies,
September 18, 1677, Roger Williams suras up the claims of the
Narragansett Colony :

" I. That of Connecticut, by grant and charter.

232 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

" 2. Plymouth Colony, by virtue of Tacommacon's surrender
of his person and lands to their protection.

" 3. Rhode Island and Providence plantationn by grant from
the King and by the Royal Commissioners (1665), who called this
land the King's Province and committed it to Rhode Island until
his further order.

" 4. Many eminent gentlemen of the Massachusetts and
other colonies claim by a mortgage and forfeiture of all lands be-
longing to the Narragansets.

" 5. Gov. Arnold and others are out a round sum about a
purchase from Tacommacon.

" 6. A like claim was and is made by Mr, John Brown and
Mr. Thos. Willett, honored gentlemen and their successors . . .
from purchase from Tacommacon and I have seen their deeds,
and Colonel Nichols', his confirmation of them under hand and
seal of his majesty's name.

" 7. Mr. Harris pleads up streams without limits and con-
firmation from the other Sachems of the up streams, etc.

"8. Mishuntatuck men claim by purchase from the Indians,
by possession, building, etc. (A line obliterated by wear.)

"9. Captain Hubbard and some others of Hingham by
their purchase of the Indians.

" 10. John Tours of Hingham by three purchases from In-
dians.

" 1 1. William Vaughan of Newport and others by purchase
from Indians.

" 12.

" 13. Randal of Scituate and White of Taunton and others
by purchase from Indians.

" 14. Edward Inman of Providence by purchases from In-
dians.

" 15. The town of Warwick which challenges twenty miles,
about part of which William Harris contending with them, it is
said, was the first occasion of William Harris falling in love with
his monstrous Diana up streams without limits so he might ante-
date and prevent, as he speaks, the blades of Warwick.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 233

" i6. The town of Providence, by virtue of Canonicus and
Miantonomah's grant renewed to me again and again, viz., as of
good accommodations as any town in the country of New Eng-
and. . . .

" Honored Sirs, there be other claims, etc. (1686) Charles
Second Commissioned Sir Edmund Andros as governor of New
England, defines Massachusetts, New Plymouth, New Hamp-
shire and Maine and the Narragansett Country, otherwise called
the King's Province, as within his jurisdiction."

(See vol. 4, Force's Hist. Tracts, No. 8.)

CHAPTER XXXI.

REVEREND HENRY FLYNT.

REV. HENRY FLYNT, father of Josiah, came over from.
England in the " Abigail " or the " Defence " in 1835-38,
and was admitted to the church in Boston the same year.
He was one of those who sympathized, as did nearly all Boston,
with the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson. His satisfactory sub-
mission to the dominant power was made as late as May 13, 1640,
when he was ordained and settled in Braintree, the same year.

He married Margery Hoare, then the Widow Mathew. She
was sister of Joanna Hoare, who married Colonel Ouincy, and of
the Rev. Leonard Hoare, third president of Harvard College.
The children of Henry and Margery Hoare Flynt were :

1. Dorothy, born July 14, 1643.

2. Josiah, born June 24, 1645.

3. Margaret, born April 20, 1647.

4. Joanna, born December iS, 1648.

5. David, born November 11, 1651.

6. Seth, born February 2, 1653.

7. Ruth, born November 31, 1654.

8. Cotton born July 16, 1656 r^^j^^

9. John, born July 16, 1656 S

Braintree records also have Anna among the children.

Margery Hoare Flynt died in 1675, and Reverend Henry died
April 27, 1680. He was sixty-eight. Mather's Magnolia states
he was in the exercise of the ministry before he left England
(page 442). He so admired Rev. John Cotton that when he was
the father of twins he named one Cotton and the other John.
The Magnolia further mourns him : " He that was solid stone in

234

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 236

the foundations of New England is gone to be a glorious one in
the walls of New Jerusalem.

Rev. Henry Flynt came from Matlock in Derbyshire, and
was of an ancient and good family, as is stated regarding his wife
on the tombstone in Braintree church under which they lie. (C.
F. Adams, 3, Epochs of Mass., page 604.)

Capt. Thomas Flynt, his brother, also came over and set-
tled in Concord. His descendants have a memorial volume which
states that Thomas brought four thousand pounds with him and ex-
pended half of it in public uses ; he was deputy one year ; assist-
tant, eleven. His will was witnessed by Henry Flynt and Joanne
Hoare. It was proved in 1663, inventory showing fourteen hun-
dred and forty-one pounds, six shillings. (16, New England Hist,
and Gen. Reg., page 72.) He had a homestead at Salem, where
many of his descendants lived.

Charles Francis Adams, in his " Three Episodes of Massa-
chusetts," pages 596-603, states of Rev. Mr. Flynt that he was a
graduate of Oxford and had been settled over an English church
in Lancashire, coming to New England in 1635, when about
twenty-nine. He came the same time with Sir Harry Vane, with
whom he was in political sympathy. He was remarkable for
piety, learning, wisdom and fidelity to his office. He was minis-
ter at Braintree for twenty-nine years.

Margery Hoare Flynt's sister Joane was married, 1648, to
Col. Edmund Quincy, but we descend from his second wife, Eliza-
beth Gookin, daughter of General Gookin, whom Colonel Quincy
married in 1690.

Judge Edmund Quincy, who died in London, descended from
Margery Hoare through her granddaughter Dorothy. Margery
was daughter of Sheriff Charles Hoare of Gloucester, England,
who died there in 1638. He was son of Charles Hoare of Glouces-
ter, who died in 1636. The Widow Hoare came here with all her
children except the eldest son, Thomas, who was alderman, and in
163 1 was sheriff of that city. Margery died March 19, 1687. A
notice of him and his family is found in the New England Gen.

236 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES.

Hist, Register, 1891, page 285, from which this is condensed. It
was written by a descendant, Sen. George F. Hoare.

In the will of her father, Margery and her son received two
hundred pounds. Her epitaph states she was a woman of piety,
prudence, and peculiarly accomplished. She is pleasantly com-
memorated by John Ouincy Adams, descendant of her sister
Joane, in his discourse at Braintree, August 24, 1839.

The brother Leonard was the first graduate of Harvard who
became its president. His wife was Bridget, daughter of John
Lisle, the regicide who was murdered at Lausanne by Royalists.
Her mother, Lady Alice Lisle, was the victim of Jeffries' "Bloody
Assizes."

Sheriff Hoare's wife was sister to William, Edward and
Thomas Hinchsman, or Henchman, as it was indifferently spelled
in those days. One of them was rector of Matlock, in Derbyshire,
whence came the Rev. H. Flynt. Thomas Henchman was prob-
ably the Major Thomas Henchman of Concord, afterwards
Chelmsford, well known in the Indian wars.

A slab has been erected by Senator Hoare in the old ceme-
tery at Ouincy to Joanna Hoare, widow of Charles Hoare. Also
one to Bridget, the widow of President Leonard Hoare of Harvard
who died 1723. She was the daughter of John, Lord Lisle, the
president of the High Court of Justice who sentenced Charles I.
Senator Hoare furnishes considerable information as to the fam-
ily. Its coat of arms is a double-headed eagle, etc.

As the granddaughter of Margery Hoare married the son of
Colonel Ouincy by his second wife, Gookin, the blood of the
Hoares runs in both branches of the descendants of Col. Edmund
Ouincy.

CHAPTER XXXII.

EDMUND QUINCY, SECOND.

LIEUT.-COL. EDMUND QUINCY was the son of Edmund
Ouincy and Judith Pares, born March 15, 1637-38, and came
to America with his parents. He married, first, July 26,
1648, Joane or Joanna Hoare; after her death in May, the i6th,
1680, he married, second, Elizabeth Eliot, December 8, 1680,
daughter of Maj.-Gen. Daniel Gookin and widow of Rev. John
Eliot, eldest son of the " Apostle Eliot."

(This sketch is derived partly from " Salisbury Family Mem-
orials " and the New England Hist. Gen. Reg. article by J. Win-
gate Thornton.)

Colonel Quincy lived mainly a private life on his estate in
Braintree, but he took a warm interest in the military organization
within the township, in which he became captain. The provincial
records show he was deputy to the General Court in 1670-73-75-
79-80-81, wherefore he must be accorded a familiar acquaintance
with the politics of the day, and a strong sympathy with the pop-
ular cause.

He was magistrate, and also lieutenant-colonel of the Suffolk
regiment. When the king began proceedings in the courts at
Westminster in the form of a quo warranto, to forfeit the old Bay
charter, his name was included among the corporators, Freemen,
to whom notice was issued to show cause why the forfeiture should
not be decreed. His father-in-law Gookin was another served
with notice, so we can readily comprehend the dauntless spirit
which inspired Gookin and Danforth to appeal the cause of Col-
onial liberty and self-government into the hands of the God of bat-
tles rather than submit to foreign dictation and taxation.

237

238 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

It found enthusiastic response in his breast. In 1689, when
at the news of the Revolution, Andros and his Jacobite allies were
thrown into prison, Colonel Ouincy was one of the committee of
safety organized to carry on a provisional government until the
pleasure of William and Mary was known. The efforts of this
provisional government, for several years, to obtain restoration of
their charter, need not be commented on. The energy of the
popular move appears to indicate that the ideas of self-government
had developed into a national sentiment, and must thenceforth be
traced in that character in the long strategic struggle whether the
colonies could be cajoled or forced into subjection or whether their
energy and strength would equal the will to throw off the English
yoke.

When a new governor and a royal charter were sent from
England the colonists had no mind to trust royal protestations too
far. When Hakon went to Valhalla, where heroes received heroic
welcome, he ordered half his followers to bring their weapons into
the hall. It is good to be prudent, even in heaven. In legisla-
tion, it is good also, and the colonists carefully sent back to the
new General Court the men who had filled the places during the
revolution against the Jacobites. Their fidelity to the colony
could be relied upon, and let the king guard his own if he could.

Colonel Quincy died January 8, 1697-98. His second wife
died November 30, 1700. He had a military funeral, and his
grave is marked by two granite stones, in which his name and
arms are inserted in lead. These were taken in the Revolution to
make bullets, but President John Adams remembered them, and
they were reproduced, states Miss Quincy in her memoir.

In the grand valhalla of American patriots. General Gookin
may have said to his son-in-law, " They are shooting your arms at
the Hessians"; to which the colonel might reply, " It is the most
useful service to which they can be put. I trust every bullet will
find a mark."

By his first marriage, with Joane Hoare, Colonel Ouincy had
children :

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 239

Mary, born 1650, who married Ephraim Savage.

Daniel, born February 7, 1651 ; married Ann Shepherd. His son
John, born 1689; Harvand College, 1708; speaker of the House of Rep-
resentatives and assistant for forty years ; he married Eliza Norton : they
had children, Norton, born 1716; Ann, married Col. John Thaxter, of
Hingham; Elizabeth, baptized 1721, married Rev. William Smith of
Weymouth in 1740. She had a daughter Abigail who in 1764 married
John Adams, subsequently President of the United States ; one of their
children, John Ouincy Adams, was also President of the United States.
Abigail's sister Mary married Judge Richard Cranch, father of Judge
Cranch of the District of Columbia. Another sister, Elizabeth Smith,
married, first, Rev. John Shaw; second, Kev. S. Peabody, Atkinson,
N. H. Mr. Smith Shaw, a founder of Boston Atheneum, descends from
this first marriage.

Lucy, daughter of John Ouincy, born 1729, married Cotton Tufts
1756 ; died, 1785.

Joan Hoare's Children. Continued.

John, born 1652; died young.
Joanna, born 1654; married David Hobart.
Judith, born 1655 ; married Rev. John Reyner, Jr.
Elizabeth, married 1681, Rev. Daniel Gookin, the son of Gen. Daniel
Gookin ; they had children, Daniel, Mary, Edmund and Elizabeth.

Joan's Children.

Edmund, born 1657; died an infant.

Ruth, born 1658; married John Hunt of Weymouth in 1686, died
1698.

Edmund, born 1660; died, 1661.

Martha, born 1665.

Experience, born 1667; married William Savill of Braintree, 1693;
died 1706-07.

(New England Gen. Hist. Register, vol. 53, page 299,)

Colonel Quincy's children by his second wife, Elizabeth Goo-
kin, Eliot, were :

Edmund, born October, 1681, graduated from Harvard ; died
of the smallpox in London.

Mary, born December 7, 1684, married, 17 14, Rev. Daniel
Barker, graduate of Harvard ; left one child, Elizabeth, who is
mentioned in the will of her uncle Edmund.

240 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

From Charles Francis Adams's " Three Episodes in Massa-
chusetts History," pages 700-701, a few details are added.

Edmund Ouincy the first was a Puritan at home, and when
this son was born, at Achurch, near Wigsthorpe, Northampton-
shire, the local record shows that the child " was baptized else-
where and not in our parish church."

He is the " Unkle Quincy" of Judge Sewell's diary, whose
death is recorded, January 8, 1698, as " that of a true New Eng-
land man and one of our best friends." His funeral took place,
"there having been frost, one or two feet thick encountered in
digging his grave." He was decently buried ; three foot com-
panies and the troop at his funeral. The pall bearers had
" scarves,"

It was this Colonel Ouincy who built the old Colonial house
at Braintree, still standing. But at page 6801, Mr. Adams states
"the new part had been built on to the older dwelling, which after-
wards relegated to meaner uses had already stood there for nearly
seventy years." This conformed with my observations. The
kitchen or rear parts were old and the new and taller part has its
roof slope down and extends together with the old roof, as in the
other old houses and the old Woodbury mansion at Beverley.
The passages and communications above are singularly compli-
cated and tangled. Some rooms open into each other and some
into the halls, and the floors are at various levels, with steps from
floor to floor.

In the Sewall papers : " Went to the funeral of my dear
Unkle. Went in the coach, our horse failing us. Took in Madam
Dudley, sending Mr. Newman before to tell her. She seemed to
be glad of the invitation and we were mutually refreshed by our
company. Had my wife, Cousin Quincy and Madam Dudley.

" Bearers were Col. Page, Lieut. Col. Hutchinson, Major
Townsend, Mr. Addington, Mr. E. M. Hutchinson, Capt. Dumer,
Major Hunt and Ensign Penniman. Had scarves. Ensign Pen-
niman was the only commissioned officer of Braintree could come
abroad. Ministers there, Mr. Torrey, Mr. Willard, Mr. Fiske,

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 241

Thacher, Danforth, Baxter. I saw from Boston, Capt. Hill,
Mr. Tay, Benet, Mr. Palmer waited on his father and mother
Hutchinson."

Mr, Sewell visited Colonel Oiiincy December 13, 1697. "I
ride to Braintree to visit my Unkle Quincy. He speaks pretty
freely to me ; saith he must run with open arms to a dying Sa-
vior ; I mentioned the public interest. He said " If we were a
holy and humble people, God would save us.' Prayed God to
bless my family and children." Colonel Quincy had been ill for
some time.

June 28, 1697, Sewell enters in his dairy : " I visit my sick,
languishing Unkle Quincy. . . . Was very glad to see me —
Cousin Edmund was at home."

There are many references in Judge Sewell's dairy to his
"Unkle" and family, his visits to him in "the new house,"
where he often passed the night. In October, 1686, he describes
the marriage of Ruth Quincy to John Hunt. Judge Sewell had
married the daughter of Mr. Hull, provincial treasurer, and Judith
Quincy, sister of Colonel Quincy. In after generations, another
Judge Sewell married the daughter of Edmund Quincy, fourth.

£

CHAPTER XXXIII.

GOOKIN.

LIZABETH GOOKIN, daughter of Gen. Daniel Gookin and
Mary Dolling, after having married Rev. John Eliot, Jr.,
was, second, married to Col. Edmund Ouincy.

The New England Historical and Genealogical Register and
the Salisbury Family Memorials have furnished me with much in-
formation about the Gookin family. (New England Hist. Gen.
Register, vol. i, pages 345-352- Vol. 2, pages 167-174. History of
Cambridge, page 563.^

Gen. Daniel Gookin was born in County Kent, England, but
went with his family to Ireland, where his brother. Sir Vincent
Gookin, was resident near Bandon, County Cork. His father,
Daniel Gookin, married, January 31, 1608, Marion or Mary, daugh-
ter of Richard Bird, S. T. P., of Canterbury. He had three sons,
of whom Daniel, born in Kent in 161 2, came to Virginia. He had
also, Irish estates.

Daniel, Sr., residing in Ireland, entered into contracts with
the Virginia company to ship cattle and settlers to Virginia in his
own vessel. He came with them and received, November 22,
1621, a grant of plantation near Newport News, where he put
his own servants and stock.

In the Indian massacre of 1622, the father acted the part of
a brave man, refusing to abandon his plantation and seek safety in
town. In July, he returned in the " Sea Flower " to England, and
the next year, 1623, arrived in Virginia, bringing with him his son
Daniel, then eleven years old. The memorials contain much cor-
respondence and detail of this Virginia life, and of the family in
Ireland. Large grants of land were made him, in one of which he is

242

THE WOODBUBY FAMILY. 243

Styled " Capt." Gookin. In time, Daniel, Jr., owned a plantation on
South River, Ann Arundel County, Maryland, and where, in 1653,
some Indians murdered his two servants and were tried and hung.

In 1642, while residing in Nausemond County, Mr. Gookin
and others applied for a Puritan minister from Massachusetts,
which offended Governor Berkley, and soon after he removed to
Massachusetts, where he was well received, 1644.

It was thought he was a captain in the parliamentary wars.
With only an occasional visit to England he remained an inhabi-
tant of Cambridge, where he settled until his death, March 19,
1687, aged seventy-five.

He was soon made captain of the militia company, and sent
deputy to the General Court in 1649. I^ 1652, he was elected
assistant under the charter. In 1656, he visited England and
had several interviews with Cromwell, to whom he became much
attached, corresponding with him.

Cromwell commissioned him to invite settlers from Massa-
chusetts and New England to remove to Jamaica, then lately cap-
tured from the Spanish. When Mr. Gookin returned to America,
he laid these plans before the General Court, and procured its aid
in the effort, eventually failing because of the extraordinary un-
healthfulness which destroyed early adventurers, discouraging and
breaking up the whole scheme.

In 1657, the General Court granted him five hundred acres
of land for his services to the country.

After the Restoration, it was soon charged that Gookin had
Goffeand Whaley come over with him, and kept them until they
found a more secure refuge. It was also added that he had on his
farm in Narragansett Purchase large numbers of cattle belonging
to the two regicides, and that he held for their support. Legal
measures were taken to seize them, but he successfully defended
his title to the cattle. Randolph preferred charges before the
Privy Council in England, against him, alleging a high misde-
meanor, but nothing resulted.

When the royal commissioners in 1666 were seeking to en-

244 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES .

force a jurisdiction over the Bay Company and to hold hearings on
complaints against them, Capt. Daniel Gookin was appointed one
of the committee by the General Court to reply to their demands.
The committee asserted that as the royal charter for Massachusetts
Bay was unrepealed, and in force, the colony was subject to its
authority. The commissioners' instructions, they averred, were
inaffective to repeal or alter the charter and, therefore, did not
supersede their local laws. Hence, they declined to recognize any
authority in the commissioners. It was a plain, acute and vigor-
ous state paper, and was effective for the Bay State's purposes un-
til the courts at Westminster repealed and declared forfeit the
charter.

Gookin was a stern and popular patriot. With Danforth, he
advocated taking a radical position about the charter ; was opposed
to sending agents to England to appear and to submit to the Eng-
lish laws of trade. He wished to stick to the charter as they con-
strued it and let Providence look out for the result. The paper
which he drafted on this subject was, unfortunately, lost. The
more prudent of the colonies yielded to the dictates of policy, and
let the impending issue be postponed to a future day of strength.

Gookin had lost a great part of his popularity in King Philip's
War, through protecting the Christian Indians, but his stand on
this subject brought it all back, and he was continued in the mag-
istracy till his death, and elected major-general.

In 1656, Gookin had been appointed superintendent of Indian
affairs, in which he continued till his death. The labors of the
Apostle Eliot and himself and charitable persons in several villages
of Christian Indians had advanced their education, and civilization
was practically cared for and developed.

The wrath generated by King Philip's War permeated all
classes of the colony. They distrusted all Indians, and were fierce
to treat the Christian Indians as hostile secretly and to confine
them. In vain did Gookin and others, who discredited the sus-
picions, endeavor to allay the wrath, their efforts being unsuccess-
ful and injuring temporarily their own popularity.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 245

In 1674, he wrote " The Historical Collections of the Indians
in Massachusetts." The work remained in manuscript, and was
first published in 1792 by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
It has great merit. He also left an " Historical Account of the
Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in 167 ^-76-^7, ''
which was published by the American Antiquarian Society in
1836 at Worcester. He began to write a history of New Eng-
land, of which the above was intended to form a part. How far
he completed this is not known, nor has the manuscript been
traced. His style of composition was modest, terse and graceful.
He was one of the original grantees of the township of Worcester,
but I doubt whether he removed there.

This is a very imperfect sketch of a man who exercised great
influence in the councils of the province for thirty years. Benev-
olence, strict principles and ability were his characteristics.

General Gookin died March 19, 1686-87. Sewell notes his
death in his diary : " A right good man." His sons were : Daniel
and Nathaniel, both ministers ; his daughters were :

Mary, who married June 8, 1670, Edmund Butler of Salem.

Elizabeth, baptized in Roxbury, March 16, 1644 ; married,
1666, Rev. John Eliot, Jr., and then December 8, 1680, Edmund
Quincy.

The Gookin arms are a chevron and three game-cocks.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

EDMUND QUINCY, FIRST.

EDMUND QUINCY, first, of Achurch, near Wigsthorpe,
Parish, Lilford (shire, Northampton), England, first came
to New England in 1628 and returned afterwards to bring
out his family.

There is considerable about the family's English pedigree
which I omit. It can be found in the memoirs on the subject.
The coat of arms is on an unexecuted will of Edmund Ouincy as
well as on a silver cup he left to the church in Rraintree. It bore:
" Gules, seven mascles conjoined or 3-3-1."

He was baptized, December 21, 1559, and married in 1593,
Ann Palmer. He died March 9, 1627-28, leaving a will and a
widow " Agnis," which was then indifferently used for "Annis"
and " Ann." He gives a legacy to his son Edmund and refers to
a freehold estate of his at Thorpe, Achurch. They had five sons
and six daughters.

The fifth child and oldest son, Edmund, was baptized May 30,
1602, and was married at Lilford, July 14, 1623, to Judith Pares.
He Innded in Boston, September 4, 1633, bringing his wife and
family and six servants. He came with Mr. Cotton, Mr. Haynes
and others of good estate.

He and his wife were admitted, November, 1633, to the first
church of Boston. March 4, 1633-34, he was made a Freeman.
May 14, he is recorded as one of the deputies elected and sitting
in the General Court. He was one of a committee in this session,
to set the boundaries of towns and the disputes between them, a
very important duty ; also, on November 10, 1634, he was ordered
to make and assess the rates.

246

THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 247

111 1635, November 14, Mr. Colborne was appointed on a com-
mittee to bound out at Mount Wolestone sufficient for Mr. Cod-
dington and Mr. Quincy to have their particular farms. Boston
had been taken with a natural land hunger, and the General Court
had enacted the previous year that all this territory and beyond
Dorchester be attached to Boston and become part of the common
territory belonging to its " inhabitants," Freemen who had been
admitted into the township corporation of Boston and entitled to
its corporate privileges.

Rev. Mr. Nilson the pastor, Mr. Coddington, the assistant,
and Mr. Quincy, the deputy, had sought for farms and received
the permission to lay them out. Four men, including Edmund
Quincy, were selected to make the allotment.

January 9, 1636, a committee, including Mr. Quincy, report
that a six hundred acre farm has been laid out for Mr. Hutchinson.
This is the last time that Mr. Ouincy's name appears on the Bos-
ton records.

Other investigators than myself have added interesting details :
first, that Mr. Coddington and Mr. Quincy did not divide their
land, but it was done after Mr. Quincy's death, possibly before
Mr. Coddington became dissatisfied with " Lords church mem-
bers " at some arbitrary proceeding and removed with great celer-
ity to Rhode Island, where he afterward became governor and a
pillar of that little colony sacred to religious liberty. The Puri-
tans in their religious quarrels with each other gave no quarter, it
was vae victis, every time.

These farms were laid out to be of one thousand acres each.
Mr. Coddington had built on the hill where the late Josiah
Quincy's purchase was finally made.

Mr. Quincy built by the brook m the lowland, near tidewater,
where the house, enlarged by Judge Quincy, still is standing.
What a succession of rare historical names may be enumerated as
having partaken of its hospitality during the two hundred and
sixty years or so since its fireside first glowed with sacred and hos-
pitable fire !

248 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

A limitless forest stretched out toward the Pacific Ocean.
They stood on the frontier of the white invasion, but even then
their speculations were broad, lofty, perhaps visionary, of being
the seed of a peculiar people, of a special gift from God as marked
and consequential as his covenant made with the patriarchs of the
Hebrews, and possibly, of a future possession reaching as far as
P'ort Orange on the Hudson.

Then came the marked crucial eras the colony was to under-
go, and at each the Edmund, whose household gods were over its
threshold, was a devoted patriot, and we can imagine the grave
and stern statesmen, like Gookin and Danforth, and the nephew
Sewell, the intellectual Flynt, gathering for a deep consultation,
moistened with a little Madeira ; or, later on, when the gay Cap-
tain Goelette, the brilliant Col. Jacob Wendell and his brother
Abraham, Colonel John, and the flower of Suffolk military, fol-
lowed in the march, after Judge Ouincy and his judicial compeers
had dined with that austere dignity which emulated the Bench of
Westminster Hall in its devotion to beef, pudding, port, and grace
before and after dinner.

Then, also, one " Dorothy 0.," carrying the name of her
grandmother Brown down to her grandson's grandson for poetic
celebrity. The " Dorothy 0." of the poet's brightest and loftiest
strains, drew her train of gallant suitors to the old halls, listened
to love tales by the gurgling brook, where the gallant Goelette, a
generation after, caught the silver eels. She gave her hand and
heart to a manly Jackson, from whose union an illustrious descent
has followed.

The grace in the generations where the Wendell blood came
into the family was a peculiar gift of the sparkling and lovely
daughters of the house, all pretty, but none surpassing Esther and
Dorothy in the imperial crowning gift of woman's influence over
the strongest, best and bravest of the human race.

How bright it was when " \.\\Q.jeii}iesse dore,'^ the flower of
promise gathered under their attractive influence, when the clever
and incipient Solicitor-General Sewell arrived, every Saturday

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 249

night, to court the fair Esther, and his dear friend, John Adams,
came over every Sunday to dine and spend the evening. When
father Quincy talked of farming with Dr. Franklin, but love's
young dream was twice as interesting an air, playing at the same
time in the ears of his attentive and respectful listeners.

His son, my great grandfather, the Doctor Jacob who stoutly
campaigned to Crown Point and in the " King George," the
" countries ship," pursued the French at Louisburg and Gauda-
loupe, also brought his military friends to talk of battles and of
Wolfe, the hero of America, but, also, to dream of the lovely
daughters of the house. Then came a graver frame of mind, the
battle cry of Freedom for the colonies, and again the house filled
with lofty and generous souls, plotting for the liberty of America,
Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Josiah Quincy, from over the hill,
probably bringing his friend. Dr. Franklin. How many they
were ! How the older set separated under the new touchstone,
some letting " I dare not " wait upon " I will !"

But it was not from this class that the house or the family
got its fame. They led with their torches flaming bright the pro-
cession of the Revolution, and the last daughter of the house fled
from the British bayonets at Lexington fight and bravely married,
in 1775, John Hancock, the patriot for whose head the tyrant king
was offering a large reward.

The royal fleet and army at Boston were too convenient to
Braintree to risk hymeneal celebrations there. They were married
at Fairfield, Conn., in the house of her father's old friend, Thaddeus
Burr, and the bride went on with her husband to Philadelphia,
where John Hancock was made president of the Continental Con-
gress, in order that the self-confident ministers of the king might
see how squarely they were defied by the young America who was
clamoring that the country was "free, white and twenty-one."

The old house has memories. How I wish I could do justice
to them ! Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, in her memoir of Judge
Edmund Quincy, third, describes the house with detail : "The
dwelling room had a carved cornice and fireplace in the corner

250 GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES

about seven feet high. The other apartments were connected by-
flues with its central chimneys," etc.

The lands were divided in 1636 between Mr. Coddington's
and Mr. Ouincy's heirs. In their original purchase, not only, she
says, was title taken from the General Court and Boston, but
they were purchased of the Massachusetts Indians " by a deed
yet extant." A note states the deed to be now (1883) in pos-
session of the town of Braintree, by which Wampatuck, son of
Chickatabot, sold land to the Faxons Sund others, except Mr. Cod-
dington's and Mr. Ouincy's farms, which were purchased by them
of his predecessors, which the said Wampatuck does hereby con-
firm.

Regarding the ancestor coming here in 1628, Miss Ouincy
gives authority for the claim, viz., a letter of the first Judge
Quincy addressed to a Mr. John Ouincy, " loving cousin," in Eng-
land ; the date is Braintree, in New England, December 20, 171 2.
The letter, after giving some account of various communications
during the past eighty years with English relatives, goes on to
state facts concerning the three generations of the branch here.
" My grandfather came over here in 1628 and brought with him
one son and one daughter. The son was my father and bore his
father's name as I bear his."

My old pastor, of St. John's church, Portsmouth., N, H., the
Rev. Mr. Burroughs, had the letter given to him as a curiosity, and
communicated it in 1832 to John Ouincy Adams, then visiting the
town.

Candor compels me to avow that I think the venerable judge
had the date wrong. He only intended to state when Mr. Ouincy
bringing his family over came to reside. That date is well au-
thenticated.

Miss Ouincy's memoir contains some interesting letters from
Judge Ouincy to "Dorothy O.", his daughter, who became Mrs.
Jackson. She states " Edmund's daughter Judith was baptized at
Achurch, September, 1626," and the record, 1627, says a son of
Mr. Ouincy's " was baptized elsewhere, not in the Parish church."
This accounts for the two children that he brought here.

OF THE WOODBURY FAMILY. 251

Mr. Ouincy's death, from the town record date, must be in
1636-37. His widow survived him, but followed St. Paul's ad-
vice, and married again, Moses Paine, who died in 1643, and in a
few years she married Robert Hull, father of her son-in-law.

The daughter, Judith Ouincy, born September, 1626, was
married May 11, 1647, to John Hull, and died June 22, 1695, her
husband dying in 1683.

John Hull was the provincial treasurer and mint master. He
gave his wife's name to Point Judith on the Narragansett Pur-
chase.

Their only daughter, Hannah Hull, married, P'ebruary 28,
1675-76, Samuel Sewell, subsequently chief justice of the prov-
ince.

The End.

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